Oracle Linux 7.6 features Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel v5

Nov 8, 2018 16:30 GMT  ·  By

Oracle announced the release and general availability of the Oracle Enterprise Linux 7.6 operating system, a maintenance update synced with the upstream repositories of Red Hat's Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6.

Derived from the sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6, the Oracle Enterprise Linux 7 Update 6 release ships with Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 5 version 4.14.35-1818.3.3 for both 64-bit (x86_64) and ARM architectures, and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel 3.10.0-957, which is only available for 64-bit systems.

"Existing applications in user space will continue to run unmodified on Oracle Linux 7 Update 6 with UEK Release 5 and no re-certifications are needed for applications already certified with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or Oracle Linux 7," said Avi Miller, Product Management Director, Oracle Linux, in the release announcement.

Here's what's new in Oracle Enterprise Linux 7 Update 6

Besides updated kernels, the Oracle Enterprise Linux 7 Update 6 release comes with numerous new features and improvements, including support for managing path, mount, and timer systemd unit files in the Pacemaker component, as well as the ability to track package installations and upgrades using audit events.

This release also adds support for encrypting keys in a Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM2) chip to the Clevis automated encryption framework, a feature that's only available for 64-bit systems, support for block and object storage layouts in parallel NFS (pNFS), and multi-queue I/O scheduling for SCSI (scsi-mq).

A Technical Preview (TP) of DAX (Direct Access) for EXT4 and XFS file systems is also available in Oracle Enterprise Linux 7 Update 6 to enable direct persistent memory mapping from an application. For AArch64 (ARM64) systems, this release enables DTrace and ports the DTrace code in the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 5 repo.

Oracle has noted that they will continue to support the Btrfs file system in Oracle Enterprise Linux even though Red Hat deprecated Btrfs support in the Red Hat Compatible Kernel. You can download Oracle Enterprise Linux 7 Update 6 for free right now through our Linux software portal or directly from Oracle.