14 DAY TRIAL // Only two months after the launch of the major Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 operating system series, Red Hat announced that it is working on the first point release, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1, which is now available for beta testing.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 is the first major update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 operating system series delivering new security enhancements, improved manageability, updated drivers for better hardware support, greater developer productivity, as well as another layer of performance improvements for better reliability and stability.
Security is very important these days, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Beta introduces container-centric SELinux profiles, which lets administrators create security policies that are more tailored to their needs for better control over container access of a host system's resources, such as compute, network, and storage.
"This enables customers to more effectively harden their container deployments against security violations, making it easier to achieve and maintain regulatory compliance. Administrators can also be far more selective about which applications are permitted to be launched on a system using a new application whitelisting functionality," said Red Hat.
Another new security feature in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1, called application whitelisting functionality, lets system administrators be more selective of the apps that are allowed to be launched on a machine, which promises to reduce the risk of malicious apps. Moreover, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 will ship with additional FIPS-140 and Common Criteria certification.
Improved manageability, performance, and developer productivity
Among other noteworthy changes added in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Beta release, we can mention the ability to configuring firewall rules and system services in detail via the Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console for improved manageability,along with support for importing QCOW virtual images, as well as pausing and resuming of virtual machines.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Beta also boosts developer productivity by implementing several new application streams with brand-new developer tools, application frameworks, and languages, adding support for more configuration options for users and SSH keys in the Image Builder, and supporting new image formats for various cloud platforms like Alibaba Cloud and Google Cloud Platform.
Last but not least, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Beta improves the overall performance of the operating system by adding new tools like eBPF, which is an extended version of the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) designed to help admins troubleshoot complex network issues, as well as XDP (eXpress Data Path). Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Beta is available for testing from the Red Hat Developer portal or the Red Hat Customer portal for existing users.