Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 beta released

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Every six months Red Hat releases a new minor update to its core Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and it's almost that time again. So, Red Hat just released the beta for RHEL 8.3 on July 28, 2020.

The beta will work on all major RHEL architectures. These are AMD and Intel 64-bit, 64-bit ARM, IBM Power, and IBM Z. On the AMD architecture, RHEL now supports Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV). On every platform, RHEL 8.3 beta uses the 4.18.0-221 Linux kernel.

As is usually the case, this new RHEL 8 mostly features developer updates. These come, beginning with RHEL 8, in Application Streams. These bundle together up-to-date programming tools and libraries with the underlying base operating system programs. The result is developers get the newest tools, while, simultaneously, administrators retain the same foundation operating system for better operational stability.

The updated RHEL 8.3 beta Application Streams include:

Git 2.26NGINX 1.18
Node.js v14
Perl 5.30
PHP 7.4
Ruby 2.7

You don't have to update to the latest and greatest programming languages or DBMSs if you don't want. So, for example, two streams (versions) of the PostgreSQL database server are available in the PostgreSQL module: PostgreSQL 10 (the default stream) and PostgreSQL 9.6.

This latest RHEL also includes new RHEL System Roles. System roles are ready-to-run Ansible DevOps playbooks. Two new roles are for Terminal and System Logging. Another is System Roles for 802.1x Networking and Certificate Management. This will help you standardize how you deal with the always difficult task of configuring corporate networks and renewing security certificates.

RHEL 8.3 beta also comes with new security profiles. Specifically, it now supports the Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmark and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) profiles. These provide you with pre-set security best practices. Finally, the beta also adds a System Role for Network-Bound Disk Encryption (NBDE) to help add disk encryption configuration consistency and repeatability.

Want to start checking it out? RHEL 8.3 beta is now accessible for Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers via the Red Hat customer portal and as part of the no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Subscription.