Oracle has released version 9 of its Enterprise Linux. Its Unbreakable Linux Kernel 7 promises, among other things, more security and performance.
Around six weeks after Red Hat Oracle also released its Oracle Linux 9 for Intel-64/AMD-64 (x86_64) and ARM (aarch64). The integrated OpenSSL 3.0 contains some new concepts and structural improvements. For example, the new FIPS module prevents the use of non-FIPS algorithms, while the FIPS flag can be set in the kernel without OpenSSL having to switch to FIPS mode.
New Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
In addition to the template-compatible Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK), the distribution offers the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 (UEK R7). According to Oracle, this promises various kernel, performance and security improvements. UEK R7 is based on the LTS kernel 5.15 and offers, among other things, core scheduling, a security function to avoid side-channel attacks, WireGuard and the new .machine kernel keyring as a trust anchor at kernel level. UEK R7 can use native VirtualBox shared folder (vboxsf) to share folders between Linux guests and the host operating system Oracle VM VirtualBox.
There are also some extensions at the file system level: Btrfs with asynchronous SSD is new -Trimming, parallel file system synchronization and fewer lookups for checksum processing. XFS now supports Direct Access (DAX) for direct access to byte-addressable persistent storage, avoiding the latency of traditional block I/O methods. The developers also improved the latency with NFS with the eager write mount option.
In addition, the kernel installation provides debug information in C-type format, so that developers can debug their systems without additional having to install packages. The manufacturer also offers UEK R7 as an update for Oracle Linux 8. All information about the new release can be found in the announcement. Oracle Linux is based on the RHEL source code, which the group translates with its own optimizations and supplements with its own ICE.
