OS Management service adds support for Autonomous Linux with critical events monitoring and Ksplice integration

Oracle Autonomous Linux and Oracle Ksplice are now integrated with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) OS Management service. This integration reaches the next milestone for autonomous and automated operating systems (OS) management in OCI.

The OS Management service provides tools to automate common operating system management tasks, such as patch and package management, and security and compliance reporting for Oracle Linux Compute instances deployed in OCI. It also provides options for discovering and monitoring resources on your instances. Autonomous Linux, based on Oracle Linux, is the first and only autonomous operating environment. By keeping systems patched and secure, it helps to eliminate complexity and human error, which increases security and availability and can reduce cost.

OS Management service can now manage Autonomous Linux instances, along with all your Oracle Linux and Windows Server instances in OCI using a single console. Autonomous Linux critical operating system events also automatically trigger the collection of diagnostic reports that are immediately submitted to the OCI service team for root cause analysis. This new feature helps free you from manual, complex, and time-consuming OS troubleshooting tasks if a critical system event occurs.

In addition, OS Management supports Ksplice, Oracle’s premium patching technology that applies important kernel security updates without rebooting. Now, you have the convenience of managing your OS patching solutions for Oracle Linux and Autonomous Linux all with a single service.

Managing Autonomous Linux instances made easy

Autonomous Linux continues to provide automatic updates that include zero-downtime kernel security patching of the kernel and key user space libraries, such as glibc and openssl, using Oracle Ksplice technology. OS Management introduces a new framework for managing Autonomous Linux instances, making it easy to identify and configure Autonomous Linux instances in OCI.

OS Management automatically discovers Autonomous Linux instances in OCI and displays an instance dashboard that allows you to configure the daily update time and enable OCI notifications for events and the results of updates. Event information collection is enabled by default, but you can choose to disable this feature. You can also view the effective kernel version as reported by Ksplice updates.

Automated reporting of critical system events

If a kernel crash or oops occurs, the Oracle Linux OS defaults to a system restart, resulting in a highly disruptive event for workloads. When critical events occur on Autonomous Linux instances, OS Management service logs the event and proactively initiates a series of automated steps to identify the issue and collect the necessary information to determine the root cause and resolution.

OS Management automatically collects the necessary files as a single zip file and submits it to the OCI service team immediately for review. This automated, proactive approach to managing critical events saves you time, so you don’t need to be called at all hours of the day to start gathering triage information and diagnostic reports. You can also request support by clicking Create Support Request and generate an Oracle support ticket with the corresponding log path information of the zip file.

Critical event data collected includes summary stack trace data, and select information from sosreport and OSWatcher. For more information on what data is collected, see the documentation.

By drilling into the event details, you can view the reason for and time of the event and a summary of the stack trace.

You can also download the event information file through the Console.

For a list of instances that experienced the same type of event and whether they were recurring, navigate to Event Recurrences.

Easy access to Ksplice updates

Ksplice updates can now be managed using the OS Management service. Autonomous Linux instances use Ksplice technology to run zero-downtime patching. Oracle Linux instances deployed from OCI platform images automatically enable Ksplice. OS Management offers the convenience of managing and configuring Ksplice updates for OCI instances whether you’re running Autonomous Linux or Oracle Linux.

You can schedule a Ksplice update under OS Management in the following ways:

• For a managed instance, selecting the Install Security Updates or Install All Updates option installs Ksplice updates, if it’s enabled.

• For a managed instance group, under the Install All Updates selection, choosing one of the All, Security, and Ksplice options installs Ksplice updates.

Deploy Autonomous Linux instances in minutes

When the OS Management service and Autonomous Linux configurations are enabled, you can deploy Autonomous Linux instances quickly and easily using the OCI Console. The Autonomous Linux image is readily available as an OS platform image in OCI and can be deployed with a few clicks.

Log in to the OCI Console, and from the left main menu, select Compute, Instances, and click Create Instance. In the Create Compute Instance page, under Image and shape, click Change Image and select the Oracle Autonomous Linux image under Platform images. Click Select Image, which brings you back to the Create Compute Instance page, where you can complete the configuration details for your instance. When you’re finished, click Create, and within minutes, an Autonomous Linux instance is up and running. It’s that easy!

The OS Management service can manage instances deployed using Autonomous Linux image build 2021.08 or later. Autonomous Linux instances deployed using previous images are not currently managed by the OS Management service.

Premier level OCI services for free

When you’re a subscriber to OCI, licensing and support for several cloud services are free. Oracle Linux Premier Support is included with an OCI subscription at no extra cost. You can enjoy the highest-level support for your Oracle Linux and Autonomous Linux instances in OCI, including around-the-clock expert telephone and online support and access to enhancements and updates, without having to worry about operating system licensing and support costs. Ksplice is exclusively available with an Oracle Linux Premier Support subscription, which is also included at no extra charge for instances running in OCI.

Also, you can use the OS Management service to manage your Autonomous Linux, Oracle Linux, and Windows Server instances in OCI at no extra cost.

Resources

To set up and enable OS Management and the Autonomous Linux plugins, refer to the Getting Started guides for OS Management and Autonomous Linux. For more information about OS Management and Autonomous Linux, visit the following links:

• OS Management service (documentation)

• Autonomous Linux (web page)

• Oracle Autonomous Linux (documentation)

• Oracle Ksplice (documentation)

• OS Management on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (Oracle Learning Library videos)