Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Red Hat Linux revs streamline container management

news
Nov 9, 20232 mins

Expanded Podman capabilities in RHEL 9.3 and forthcoming RHEL 8.9 allow users to automate the configuration of container networks, health checks, and secrets and use Quadlet container definitions.

red hat logo
Credit: Red Hat

Red Hat on November 8 announced both the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.3 and the planned release of RHEL 8.9, which expand the built-in Podman container management capabilities.

Both versions natively include the Podman open source daemonless tool for running and sharing Linux containers. The two releases further integrate this functionality into existing workflows through automation, via RHEL web console enhancements. When a Podman container health check fails, administrators can specify an automated action for remediation, thus easing the burden of managing containerized workloads.

Container-centric updates extend to RHEL system roles, providing pre-configured sets of Ansible roles and modules to streamline specific operations. The RHEL system role for Podman now supports the Quadlet tool for simplifying the running of containers with systemd. System administrators can more effectively use systemd as a localized container management system, thus reducing complexities otherwise needing human intervention.

RHEL 9.3 is available now, and RHEL 8.9 will be out in coming weeks. RHEL is accessible from redhat.com. The reason RHEL 9.3 is out before RHEL 8.9 has to do with backporting and codebase quality assurance, according to Red Hat. RHEL 9 tracked slightly ahead of RHEL 8.

RHEL 9.3 brings full support for Stratis, a Linux storage system designed to simplify storage administration. Stratis integrates existing Linux storage features into a more streamlined user-friendly interface. Capabilities include dynamic scaling, encryption, optimized resource allocation, thin provisioning, snapshots, and caching.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

More from this author