Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Using Red Hat Enterprise Linux Images on OCI

You can deploy certified Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform images directly in your OCI tenancy and pay for usage through OCI.

RHEL images on OCI reduce the effort required to deploy and use RHEL. They are designed to work on virtual machine (VM) and bare metal (BM) shapes. Initially, RHEL images are available only for VM shapes.

RHEL images on OCI offer the following advantages:

  • Faster, simpler deployment of RHEL images.
  • Access to RHEL images through OCI CLI tools and APIs.
  • Integrated support from Oracle and Red Hat.
  • Usage-based pricing.

For information about creating an instance, see Creating an Instance.

Supported Images

Platform images for RHEL 9.8 or RHEL 10.2 are available. After an instance is running, you can access RHEL software packages and updates through OCI-hosted Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI), with support provided by Oracle and Red Hat.

For more information on OCI image availability and general usage considerations see: Platform Images.

For more information on specific image availability and versions see: OCI Image Release Notes.

Supported Shapes

All RHEL images are supported on the following VM shapes.

Flex Shapes

  • VM.Standard3.Flex
  • VM.Standard.E4.Flex
  • VM.Standard.E5.Flex
  • VM.Standard.E6.Flex

DenseIO Shapes

  • VM.DenseIO.E4.Flex
  • VM.DenseIO.E5.Flex
Note

All supported RHEL image versions are supported on the listed shapes.

Updates and Support

OCI-provided RHEL platform images are configured to connect to OCI-hosted regional RHUI, which synchronizes RHEL content from Red Hat. You can use this service to apply available updates to running instances, while Oracle publishes updated platform images as Red Hat makes new builds available for supported RHEL releases. For new instances, select the latest available platform image in each version family and refer to the OCI images catalog and release notes for version details and changes.

Customers using OCI-provided RHEL platform images can open a service request with Oracle Support, which helps diagnose issues across the OCI environment and works with Red Hat as needed. Oracle provides Tier 1 and Tier 2 support and remains the customer’s contact when Red Hat is involved.

For Red Hat Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS) deployments, RHEL licensing and operating system support remain with Red Hat under the customer’s existing subscription, while Oracle continues to support the OCI infrastructure.

For more information, see:

RHUI Support

OCI-provided RHEL platform images include the configuration needed to access OCI-hosted regional RHUI. During startup, the instance automatically determines its OCI region and configures the corresponding RHUI endpoint. For example, the regional endpoint for US West (Phoenix) is: https://repository.rhui.us-phoenix-1.oci.oraclecloud.com

Important

No manual RHUI setup or repository configuration is required.

Customers can check for and install available updates using DNF:

sudo dnf check-update
sudo dnf upgrade

The instance needs network connectivity to its regional RHUI endpoint over HTTPS (TCP port 443). RHUI supplies software packages and updates, RHUI does not itself provide reboot-free kernel patching. Kernel updates may require a reboot.

References

Pricing

For current pricing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux images, see the Oracle Cloud Price List.

The following table lists pricing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux images.

Service VM size (OCPUs) Price (USD per OCPU-hour)
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure – Compute – Virtual Machine – Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS (1–4 OCPU) Equal to or greater than 1 and up to 4 OCPU $0.0288
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure – Compute – Virtual Machine – Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS (5–63 OCPU) Equal to or greater than 5 and up to 63 OCPU $0.0216
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure – Compute – Virtual Machine – Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS (≥64 OCPU) Equal to or greater than 64 OCPU $0.0192
Note

RHEL charges are additional to OCI infrastructure charges. In addition, you can use Oracle Universal Credits.