Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5 released

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4 released

Oracle 12c R1 and R2 now certified on RHEL 7.1 and SLES 12 SP1 for Linux on z / LinuxONE

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.3 released

On November 3rd 2016 Red Hat released the next regular update to their flag ship operating system.

The kernel level for 7.3 is kernel-3.10.0-514.el7.

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete RHEL 7 documentation
• RHEL 7.3 release notes
• RHEL 7.3 known issues
• RHEL 7.3 kernel CVE and bugfix documentation
• RHEL 7 installation guide
• RHEL 7 installation guide for z
• RHEL 7 performance tuning guide
• IBM documentation on developerworks (7.2 version)
• RHEL limits
• RHEL lifecycle with the end date for the Extended Update Service (EUS)
• RHEL7 package list

From a Linux on z Systems perspective the major enhancements are in the tool chain. The compiler can now can exploit the SIMD instructions of z13.

Also in September Red Hat achieved EAL4+ / common criteria certification for RHEL 7.1:

• Red Hat press release
• Red Hat certification overview
• BSI certification report  

 (updated 4/11/2016)

Oracle 11 R2 now certified on RHEL 7.1 for Linux on z / LinuxONE

The certification is finally done with Oracle 11.2.0.4 and RHEL 7.1. It's highly recommended that you upgrade to the latest fixpacks though. Read more in the IBM Flash or go directly to Oracle support and read the Oracle Note (requires Oracle login):

• 1967531.1: "Requirements for Installing Oracle 11.2.0.4 RDBMS on RH7 on IBM: Linux on System z (s390x)" - which has detailed installation instructions, which are a must read before trying to install. 

As usual with Oracle certifications RHEL 7.1 is the minimal level required.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.2 released

On November 19th 2015 Red Hat released the next regular update to their flag ship operating system.

The kernel level for 7.2 is kernel-3.10.0-327.el7. The number of technology previews for System z has been greatly reduced, successful testing allows now support for those features.

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete RHEL 7 documentation
• RHEL 7.2 release notes
• RHEL 7.2 known issues
• RHEL 7.2 kernel CVE and bugfix documentation
• RHEL 7 installation guide
• RHEL 7 installation guide for z
• RHEL 7 performance tuning guide
• IBM documentation on developerworks
• RHEL limits
• RHEL lifecycle with the end date for the Extended Update Service (EUS)
• RHEL7 package list (now updated to include 7.2)

From a Linux on z Systems perspective this is a major step. This is the first distribution that supports SMT2 natively.So if you install it, you will have twice as many logical CPUs.

And this is the first Red Hat distribution that supports the High Availability and Resilient Storage Add-Ons. So far some restrictions apply, but they hopefully can be lifted in later releases.

(updated 4/26/2016) 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.7 released

On July 22, 2015 Red Hat has announced the availability of RHEL 6.7. The kernel level is now kernel-2.6.32-573.el6, for the main bug fixes see the kernel update description.

As usual there are the release notes and the technical notes in two separate documents. The complete documentation can be reached from the Red Hat documentation page (you need to select "6" on the left bar).

For System z this has been a mainly a fix release. Only a few small enhancements have been added all described in the technical notes. Here are some of them:

• s390utils update
• crypto updates: libica, opencryptoki (including EP11 support)

The IBM documentation for RHEL 6.4 on developerworks still applies for this release.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 released

It's been an unusual long time between releases - but now nearly eleven months after the last release Red Hat has announced the availability of RHEL 6.6. The kernel level is now kernel-2.6.32-504.el6, for the main bug fixes see the kernel update description.

As usual there are the release notes and the technical notes in two separate documents. The complete documentation can be reached from the Red Hat documentation page.

For System z this has been a mainly a fix release. Only a few small enhancements have been added all described in the technical notes. Here are some of them:

• libhugetlbfs support for System z
• crypto updates: libica, opencryptoki
• read only sequential data set access avoiding ftp/nfs transfers from z/OS using the zdfs file system

The IBM documentation for RHEL 6.4 on developerworks still applies for this release.

IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) available for Linux on System z

IBM has announced the availability of the General Parallel File System (GPFS) aka Elastic Storage for Linux on System z. It's the new 4.1 version and for zLinux the minimum distribution requirements are

• RHEL 6.5 + latest z stream patches
• RHEL 7.0
• SLES 11 SP3 + latest maintenance patches 

 There is also a short Redbook solution guide available.