Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 simplifies operations at scale

November 16, 2022 | 3 minute read
Simon Coter
Director, Oracle Linux and Virtualization Product Management
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The Oracle Linux team is pleased to announce the availability of the Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 release for the 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms. As with all Oracle Linux releases, this release is 100% application binary compatible with the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux release.

Notable changes are in the areas of security and high availability and enable customers to manage their systems more efficiently by simplifying administration tasks and operations at scale.

Security

  • Network Security Services (NSS) libraries are updated to set the minimum key size for all RSA operations from 128 to 1023 bits.
  • Greater compliance with the DISA's STIG requirements for Oracle Linux 8, part of the updated scap-security-guidepackage.

High availability

  • Enhancements have been introduced for Pacemaker, including "multiple-active", "allow-unhealthy-node", access control lists and UUID for Pacemaker clusters.

Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 also includes bug and security fixes, feature updates, and updated Application Stream modules. It ships with the kernel-uek-5.15.0-3.60.5.1 Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 7 and kernel-4.18.0-425.3.1 Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) packages. For details of the new features, enhancements, and changes, refer to the Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 Release Notes.

For 64-bit Intel and AMD architectures, Oracle Linux ships with two kernel options, the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK). On the Arm platform, Oracle Linux ships with UEK only.

Note: If you are upgrading from a previous Oracle Linux 8 version, the kernel is not automatically upgraded to UEK R7 across all architectures.

Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 with UEK R7 continues to maintain and grant support for the btrfs file system with Oracle Linux and gives you access to one of the most modern copy on write (COW) file systems for Linux.

The updated AppStream yum repository for Oracle Linux 8 now contains updated modules, which are sets of RPMs that can or must be installed together, and includes packages that provide additional support for a variety of workloads, such as user-space applications, runtime languages, and databases.

Upgrading or migrating to Oracle Linux 8

You can upgrade an Oracle Linux 7 system to the latest Oracle Linux 8 release by using the leapp utility. For step-by-step instructions and information about any known issues that you might encounter when upgrading your system, see Oracle Linux 8: Performing System Upgrades With Leapp.

With centos2ol.sh you can easily move from CentOS to Oracle Linux, maintaining 100% binary compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and continue to run, update, and maintain your systems for free.

Manage your Oracle Linux instances with Oracle Linux Automation Manager

Recently, Oracle Linux Automation Manager 2.0 was released with added scalability and flexibility. Its decentralized architecture uses a modular, container-based approach that effectively decouples the control and execution planes, with the option of multiple nodes, and the ability to have a remote database environment. Current users can easily migrate to the 2.0 release by following instructions within the documentation

For organizations invested in YAML and using or evaluating AWX, Oracle Linux Automation Manager can easily integrate and run existing YAML-based playbooks and provide a comprehensive automation solution.

Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 together with Oracle Linux Automation Manager 2.0 can help you simplify operations at scale and efficiently manage automation.

Download and try them both now!

There are additional Oracle Linux resources such as scripts to build Oracle Linux imagesvirtual machine templates and Vagrant projects that can help you rapidly build and provision Oracle Linux instances for Oracle VM VirtualBox, KVM, Oracle Cloud or other clouds.

Resources

oracle.com/linux

Training

www.oracle.com/goto/oltrain

GitHub

Social Media

Simon Coter

Director, Oracle Linux and Virtualization Product Management

A 19-year Oracle veteran, Simon Coter is an experienced product manager and open source community member. He leads a team responsible for several Oracle Linux and Virtualization offerings, including Oracle Linux, the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux, Oracle Cloud Native Environment, Oracle Linux KVM, Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager, Oracle Linux Automation Manager, Gluster, Oracle VM, and VirtualBox. Prior to this, Simon was a technical consultant focused on project management, architectures definition, sizing and implementation, best practices, and technical references for customers.


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