Red Hat Announces Beta Availability For Next Minor Release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of the beta of the next minor release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9. This beta release is part of Red Hat’s commitment to a 10-year stable Life Cycle for major releases like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Included in this minor release are a broad set of updates to the existing features. The beta release also provides new functionality in the areas of virtualization and networking, and new support for standards, certifications and security, as well as new features that support certificate-based Red Hat Subscription Management. Also included are additions to capabilities for developers and support for some of the latest platforms from our hardware partners. With new drivers for Microsoft Hyper-V that have recently been accepted by the upstream Linux community, customers can now run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 as a virtual guest on Hyper-V with improved performance.

The general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 will mark the end of Production phase 1 of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Life Cycle.  The Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform’s 10-year Life Cycle enables customers with existing hardware and software investments to confidently and securely remain on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 until they are ready to migrate to a new version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux – or until the conclusion of the product's Extended Life Phase.

Key functionality in the Beta for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes:

Hardware Enablement: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 showcases Red Hat's strong relationships with industry-leading hardware vendors.  This minor release contains support for the latest CPU, chip set, and device driver enhancements from leading hardware vendors.

Security, Standards, and Certifications: Security enhancements are fundamental to any Red Hat Enterprise Linux release. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes support for the latest U.S. government password policy requirements. This capability provides IT managers with tighter security controls and the ability to verify and check the robustness of any new password entered by a user.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 adds support for using FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) mode with dmraid root devices. FIPS mode now supports RAID device discovery, RAID set activation, and the creation, removal, rebuilding and displaying of properties.

Developer Tools: Customers can develop and test with the latest version of open source Java with the introduction of OpenJDK 7.

Many new improvements to SystemTap from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 have been added to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, including compile-server and client support for IPv6 networks, smaller SystemTap files, faster compiles, and compile server support for multiple concurrent connections.

Applications: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 includes a new rsyslog5 package which upgrades rsyslog to major version 5. The rsyslog5 package runs faster and is more reliable than existing rsyslog packages.

Samba has been updated to version 3.6. New features include fully featured SMB2 support, a reworked print server, and security default improvements for all versions of Samba.

Virtualization: Customers can easily run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9 as a guest on top of Microsoft Hyper-V, providing enhanced interoperability in a Windows environment. This enhances the usability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for guests in a heterogeneous multi-vendor virtualized environment and provides improved flexibility and interoperability for our customers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 now includes the Microsoft Hyper-V Linux drivers, which were recently accepted upstream Linux community, and improves the overall performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as a guest on Microsoft Hyper-V.

Red Hat Subscription Management: With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, by default customers will use Red Hat Subscription Management as an enhanced subscription management capability using X.509 certificates. This will allow customers to effectively manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions locally and report on subscription distribution and utilization. A number of Red Hat Subscription Manager improvements make migration from Red Hat Network (RHN) Classic to certificate-based Subscription Management much easier. In addition, the Subscription Manager user interface is now much easier to use and navigate.

At Red Hat, we appreciate the support we receive from our partners and customers that work closely with us to develop and deliver the highest quality open source enterprise platform available today.

Details of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle are available here:
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/

To access and download the Beta for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, please visit:  https://rhn.redhat.com/rhn/software/channels/Beta.do