Overview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux images

  • Article

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs

This article describes available Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) images in Azure Marketplace and policies around their naming and retention.

For information on Red Hat support policies for all versions of RHEL, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle. For pricing details, see Linux Virtual Machines Pricing.

Important

RHEL images currently available in Azure Marketplace support either bring your own subscription (BYOS) or pay-as-you-go licensing models. You can dynamically switch between BYOS and pay-as-you-go licensing through Azure Hybrid Benefit. Note: BYOS images are based on private plans and currently not supported in CSP subscriptions (see https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/partner-center/marketplace/private-plans#unlock-enterprise-deals-with-private-plans)

Note

For any problem related to RHEL images in Azure Marketplace, file a support ticket with Microsoft.

View images available in Azure

When you search for Red Hat in Azure Marketplace or when you create a resource in the Azure portal, you see only some of the available RHEL images. You can get the full set of available VM images by using the Azure CLI, PowerShell, and API. To see the full set of available Red Hat images in Azure, use the az vm image list command:

az vm image list --publisher RedHat --all --output table

Naming convention

Azure organizes VM images by publisher, offer, SKU, and version. The combination of Publisher:Offer:SKU:Version is the image URN and uniquely identifies the image to be used.

For example, RedHat:RHEL:8-LVM:8.1.20200318 refers to a RHEL 8.1 LVM-partitioned image built on March 18, 2020.

This command uses az vm create to create a RHEL 8.1 VM.

az vm create --name RhelVM --resource-group TestRG --image RedHat:RHEL:8-LVM:8.1.20200318

The latest moniker

The Azure REST API allows use of the moniker latest for the version instead of the specific version. Using latest provisions the latest available image for the given publisher, offer, and SKU.

For example, RedHat:RHEL:8-LVM:latest refers to the latest RHEL 8 family LVM-partitioned image available. The --no-wait parameter returns control to the command line while the create operation proceeds.

az vm create --name RhelVM --resource-group TestRG --image RedHat:RHEL:8-LVM:latest --no-wait

Note

In general, the comparison of versions to determine the latest follows the rules of the Version.CompareTo Method. This image version comparison is done by comparing the values as a Version object, not as a string.

RHEL 7 image types

Note

As of June 30 2024, RHEL 7.9 entered end of life. For continued support, enable ELS as part of the Extended Life-cycle Support phase. See RHEL Extended Lifecycle Support.

Note

Unless otherwise indicated, all images are LVM partitioned and connect to regular RHEL repositories. That is, the repositories aren't Extended Update Support (EUS) and aren't Update Services for SAP (E4S). Going forward, we're moving to publishing only LVM-partitioned images but are open to feedback on this decision. For more information on Extended Update Support and Update Services for SAP, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle.

For RHEL 7.x images, there are a few different image types. The following table shows the different sets of images we offer. To see a full list, use the Azure CLI command az vm image list --publisher redhat --all.

Publisher Offer SKU value Version Details
RedHat RHEL Minor version. for example, 7.6 Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019102813 Images published before April 2019 are attached to standard RHEL repositories. Images published after April 2019 are attached to Red Hat's EUS repositories to allow version-locking of a specific minor version. Customers who want regular repositories should use the images that contain 7-LVM or 7-RAW in the SKU value. RHEL 7.7 and later images are LVM partitioned. All other images in this category are raw partitioned.
RedHat RHEL 7-RAW Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019102813 These images are raw partitioned, for example, no logical volumes were added.
RedHat RHEL 7-RAW-CI Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019072418 These images are raw partitioned, for example, no logical volumes were added, and use cloud-init for provisioning.
RedHat RHEL 7-LVM Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019062414 These images are LVM partitioned.
RedHat rhel-byos rhel-{lvm,raw} Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.7.20190819 These images are the RHEL 7 BYOS images. They're not attached to any repositories and don't charge the RHEL premium fee. If you're interested in the RHEL BYOS images, request access. SKU values end with the minor version and denote whether the image is raw or LVM partitioned. For example, an SKU value of rhel-lvm77 indicates an LVM-partitioned RHEL 7.7 image.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019071300 These images are RHEL for SAP images. They're entitled to access the SAP HANA and Applications repositories and RHEL E4S repositories. Billing includes the RHEL premium and the SAP premium on top of the base compute fee.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-HA Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019062320 These images are RHEL for SAP with High Availability and Update Services images. They're entitled to access the SAP HANA and Applications repositories and the High Availability repositories as well as RHEL E4S repositories. Billing includes the RHEL premium, SAP premium, and High Availability premium on top of the base compute fee.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-HA Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.6.2019062019 These images are RHEL images that are also entitled to access the High Availability add-on. They charge slightly extra on top of the RHEL and base compute fee due to the High Availability add-on premium.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-APPS Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.3.2017053118 These images are out of date because the SAP Applications and SAP HANA repositories were combined into the SAP repositories. These images are RHEL for SAP Applications images. They're entitled to access SAP Applications repositories and base RHEL repositories.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-HANA Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 7.3.2018051421 These images are out of date because the SAP Applications and SAP HANA repositories were combined into the SAP repositories. These images are RHEL for SAP HANA images. They're entitled to access SAP HANA repositories and base RHEL repositories.

RHEL 8 image types

Note

Red Hat recommends using Grubby to configure kernel command line parameters in RHEL 8+. For more information, see Configuring kernel command-line parameters.

Details for RHEL 8 image types:

Publisher Offer SKU value Version Details
RedHat RHEL 8 Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 8.0.20191023 These images are RHEL 8 LVM-partitioned images connected to standard Red Hat repositories.
RedHat RHEL 8-gen2 Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 8.0.20191024 These images are Hyper-V Generation 2 RHEL 8 LVM-partitioned images connected to standard Red Hat repositories. For more information about Generation 2 VMs in Azure, see Support for generation 2 VMs.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-APPS Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 8.1.2021012201 These images are RHEL for SAP Applications images. They're entitled to access SAP Applications repositories and base RHEL repositories.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-HA Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 8.1.2021010602 These images are RHEL for SAP with High Availability and Update Services images. They're entitled to access the SAP Solutions and Applications repositories and the High Availability repositories as well as RHEL E4S repositories. Billing includes the RHEL premium, SAP premium, and High Availability premium on top of the base compute fee.

RHEL 9 image types

Details for RHEL 9 image types:

Publisher Offer SKU value Version Details
RedHat RHEL 9 Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published, for example, 9.0.2022090613 These images are RHEL 9 LVM-partitioned images connected to standard Red Hat repositories.
RedHat RHEL 9-gen2 Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published (for example, 9.0.2022090613) These images are Hyper-V Generation 2 RHEL 9 LVM-partitioned images connected to standard Red Hat repositories. For more information about Generation 2 VMs in Azure, see Support for Generation 2 VMs on Azure.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-APPS (Not yet published) Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published These images are RHEL for SAP Applications images. They're entitled to access SAP Applications repositories and base RHEL repositories.
RedHat RHEL RHEL-SAP-HA (Not yet published) Concatenated values of the RHEL minor version and the date published These images are RHEL for SAP with High Availability and Update Services images. They're entitled to access the SAP Solutions and Applications repositories and the High Availability repositories as well as RHEL E4S repositories. Billing includes the RHEL premium, SAP premium, and High Availability premium on top of the base compute fee.

RHEL Extended Support add-ons

Extended Life-cycle Support

The Extended Life-cycle Support (ELS) add-on is an optional subscription that enables critical and important security fixes for releases that have reached end of life. For more information, see Extended Life-cycle Support Add-On.

ELS is currently only available for RHEL 6.10. For pay-as-you-go images, enable ELS by following the steps in RHEL Extended Lifecycle Support.

If you're running on an older version, an upgrade to RHEL 6.10 is required before you can enable ELS.

Extended Update Support

As of April 2019, RHEL images are available that are attached to the EUS repositories by default. For more information, see RHEL Extended Update Support Overview.

Switching to EUS repositories is possible and is supported. For instructions on how to switch your VM to EUS and more information about EUS support end-of-life dates, see RHEL EUS and version-locking RHEL VMs.

Note

EUS isn't supported on RHEL Extras. If you install a package that's usually available from the RHEL Extras channel, you can't do so while on EUS. For more information on the Red Hat Extras product life cycle, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Extras Product Life Cycle.

Differentiate between regular and EUS images

If you want to use images that are attached to EUS repositories, you should use the RHEL image that contains a RHEL minor version number in the SKU.

For example, you might see the following two RHEL 7.4 images available.

RedHat:RHEL:7-LVM:7.6.2019062414
RedHat:RHEL:7.6:7.6.2019102813

In this case, RedHat:RHEL:7.6:7.6.2019102813 is attached to EUS repositories by default. The SKU value is 7.4. And RedHat:RHEL:7-LVM:7.6.2019062414 is attached to non-EUS repositories by default. The SKU value is 7-LVM.

To use regular (non-EUS) repositories, use an image that doesn't contain a minor version number in the SKU.

RHEL images with EUS

Information in the following table applies to RHEL images that are connected to EUS repositories.

Note

Currently, only RHEL 7.4 and later minor versions have EUS support. EUS is no longer supported for RHEL <=7.3.

For more information about RHEL EUS availability, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle.

Minor version EUS image example EUS status
RHEL 7.4 RedHat:RHEL:7.4:7.4.2019041718 Images published April 2019 and later are EUS by default.
RHEL 7.5 RedHat:RHEL:7.5:7.5.2019060305 Images published June 2019 and later are EUS by default.
RHEL 7.6 RedHat:RHEL:7.6:7.6.2019052206 Images published May 2019 and later are EUS by default.
RHEL 8.0 N/A No EUS is available from Red Hat.

Update Services for SAP

The latest RHEL for SAP images are connected to the Update Services for SAP Solutions subscriptions (E4S). For more information about E4S, see Update Services for SAP Solutions.

Note

If you intend to update OS connected to E4S repositories to the latest version, you can enforce the latest available EUS minor-release in the /etc/yum/vars/releasever file without switching to non-EUS.

For information on RedHat EUS availability, see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle.

For steps on how to enforce a minor version, see How to set a specific release version on RHUI. Steps outlined in that article also apply to RHEL8.* versions.

RHEL images with E4S

Images from the following offers created after December 2019 are connected to E4S repositories:

  • RHEL-SAP (RHEL for SAP)
  • RHEL-SAP-HA (RHEL for SAP with High Availability and Update Services)

Other available offers and SKUs

The full list of available offers and SKUs might include more images beyond what is listed in the previous table. An example is RedHat:rhel-ocp-marketplace:rhel74:7.4.1. These offers might be used to provide support for specific marketplace solutions, or they could be published for previews and testing purposes. They might be changed or removed at any time without warning. Don't use them unless either Microsoft or Red Hat publicly presents them.

Publishing policy

Microsoft and Red Hat update images as new minor versions are released, as required to address specific common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) or for occasional configuration changes or updates. We strive to provide updated images as soon as possible within three business days following a release or availability of a CVE fix.

We update only the current minor release in a given image family. With the release of a newer minor version, we stop updating the older minor version. For example, with the release of RHEL 7.6, RHEL 7.5 images are no longer updated.

Note

Active Azure VMs provisioned from RHEL pay-as-you-go images are connected to the Azure RHUI and can receive updates and fixes as soon as they're released by Red Hat and replicated to the Azure RHUI. The timing is usually less than 24 hours following the official release by Red Hat. These VMs don't require a new published image for getting the updates. Customers have full control over when to initiate the update.

Image retention policy

Current policy is to keep all previously published images. We reserve the right to remove images that are known to cause problems of any kind. For example, images with incorrect configurations due to subsequent platform or component updates might be removed. Images that might be removed follow the current Azure Marketplace policy to provide notifications up to 30 days before image removal.

Next steps