Red Hat Enterprise Linux

os red-hat

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market.

Release Released Full Support Maintenance Support Extended Life Cycle Support Latest
9 (Upcoming ELS) 2 years and 6 months ago
(17 May 2022)
 Ends in 2 years and 6 months
(31 May 2027)
 Ends in 7 years
(31 May 2032)
 Ends in 10 years
(31 May 2035)
 9.4
(30 Apr 2024)
8 (Upcoming ELS) 5 years ago
(07 May 2019)
 Ended 5 months and 3 weeks ago
(31 May 2024)
 Ends in 4 years and 6 months
(31 May 2029)
 Ends in 7 years
(31 May 2032)
 8.10
(22 May 2024)
7 (ELS) 10 years ago
(11 Dec 2013)
 Ended 5 years ago
(06 Aug 2019)
 Ended 4 months and 3 weeks ago
(30 Jun 2024)
 Ends in 3 years and 7 months
(30 Jun 2028)
 7.9
(29 Sep 2020)
6 (ELS) 14 years ago
(09 Nov 2010)
 Ended 8 years ago
(10 May 2016)
 Ended 3 years and 11 months ago
(30 Nov 2020)
 Ended 4 months and 3 weeks ago
(30 Jun 2024)
 6.10
(19 Jun 2018)
5 (ELS) 17 years ago
(15 Mar 2007)
 Ended 11 years ago
(08 Jan 2013)
 Ended 7 years ago
(31 Mar 2017)
 Ended 3 years and 11 months ago
(30 Nov 2020)
 5.11
(16 Sep 2014)
4 19 years ago
(15 Feb 2005)
 Ended 15 years ago
(31 Mar 2009)
 Ended 12 years ago
(29 Feb 2012)
 Ended 7 years ago
(31 Mar 2017)
 4.9
(16 Feb 2011)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 5, 6, and 7 each deliver ten years of support in Full Support, Maintenance Support 1 and Maintenance Support 2 Phases followed by an Extended Life Phase. In addition, for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6, customers may purchase annual Add-on subscriptions called Extended Life-cycle Support (ELS) to extend limited subscription services beyond the Maintenance Support 2 Phase.

With the introduction of Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 8, Red Hat is simplifying the RHEL product phases from four to three: Full Support, Maintenance Support, and Extended Life Phase.

Full Support Phase

During the Full Support Phase, qualified Critical and Important Security errata advisories (RHSAs) and Urgent and Selected High Priority Bug Fix errata advisories (RHBAs) may be released as they become available. If available, new or improved hardware enablement and select enhanced software functionality may be provided at Red Hat’s discretion.

Maintenance Support Phase

During the Maintenance Support Phase (called “Maintenance Support 2” for RHEL 7), qualified RHSAs and RHBAs may be released as they become available. Other errata advisories may be delivered as appropriate. New functionality and new hardware enablement is at the discretion of Red Hat, and varies by operating system release.

Extended Life Cycle Support (ELS)

This is offered by the Extended Life Phase (which provides access to documentation and support), during Extended Life Cycle Support (ELS) certain critical-impact security fixes, selected urgent priority bug fixes, and troubleshooting for the last minor release of a given version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

  • On RHEL 7 ELS is not available for the architectures System z (Structure A), ARM, and POWER9.
  • On RHEL 6 ELS is only available for the IBM z Systems and the x86 architecture, both 32-bit and 64-bit variants.
  • On RHEL 6 a specific number of packages are supported under ELS which is listed here.

More information is available on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux website.

You should be running one of the supported release numbers listed above in the rightmost column.

You can check the version that you are currently using by running: 
cat /etc/redhat-release
Show Product Identifiers

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