Red Hat OpenShift Life Cycle Policy

Overview

Red Hat provides a published product life cycle for Red Hat OpenShift, in order for customers and partners to effectively plan, deploy, and support their infrastructure. Red Hat publishes this life cycle in an effort to provide as much transparency as possible and may make exceptions from these policies as conflicts may arise.

Red Hat OpenShift provides a time-delineated, phased life cycle. The time period of support is fixed from the point of minor version release and offers varying levels of support and maintenance. Red Hat aims to forecast minor releases at a four month cadence, providing customers ample opportunity to plan.

Starting with Red Hat OpenShift 5, each OpenShift minor release receives 12 months of Full Support followed by 12 months of Maintenance Support, for a total of 24 months. Designated Extended Life Cycle (ELC) releases are eligible for an optional add-on providing up to 36 additional months of support, for a total of up to 60 months from general availability.

This page documents the current OpenShift life cycle. For legacy Extended Update Support (EUS) offerings (applicable to Red Hat OpenShift 4 or earlier), see the Legacy Extended Support Offerings policy. For other, older versions of OpenShift, see the Life Cycle page for non-current OpenShift versions.

OpenShift minor release life cycle

Legacy Extended Support Offerings

Customers using legacy Extended Update Support (EUS) offerings can continue using them through their published end dates under their existing subscription terms. The ELC model does not replace those subscriptions or life cycle phases. This is applicable to Red Hat OpenShift 4.

The legacy OpenShift diagram, Full Support and Maintenance Support definitions, and the following offerings are documented on the Legacy Extended Support Offerings page:

• Extended Update Support Add-On - Long-Life Offering - Additional Term 1
• Extended Update Support Add-On - Long-Life Offering - Additional Term 2
• Extended Update Support Add-On - Long-Life Offering - Additional Term 3

For earlier EUS life cycle information, see the Extended Update Support (EUS) Overview page.

Errata and Support Policy

Throughout this document, references to standard errata criteria mean the following:

• Security errata (RHSA): qualified Critical, Important, and Moderate CVEs with a CVSS score of 7.0 or higher, as defined by Red Hat in a Red Hat Security Advisory (RHSA). Moderate CVEs with a CVSS score of 7.0 or higher became effective on April 1, 2025.
• Bug fix errata (RHBA): Urgent and Selected High Priority Bug Fix Advisories, as defined by Red Hat. Extended support phases limit bug fixes to urgent-priority fixes as described in the applicable phase or subscription term.

The applicable life cycle phase defines when errata meeting these criteria will or may be released. See the latest security updates for available advisories.

The latest Major and Minor releases are the primary source for software enhancements. Roll-ups, updates, and patches are specifically reserved for bug fixes.

Errata released while a customer has support for the applicable release remain available to that customer across the entire life cycle.

Support is provided according to the published Scope of Coverage and Service Level Agreement.

Technology Preview and Third-Party Support

Technology Preview components follow the Technology Preview policy. Third-party software follows the Third-Party Support policy.

Life Cycle Phases

Full Support

Starting with Red Hat OpenShift 5, this phase begins at the general availability (GA) of the OpenShift minor release and ends 12 months after GA.

Full support is provided according to the published Scope of Coverage and Service Level Agreement. Likewise, Development Support is provided according to the published Scope of Coverage and Service Level Agreement.

During the Full Support Phase, security errata meeting the standard errata criteria will be released as they become available. Urgent and Selected High Priority Bug Fix Advisories (RHBAs) will be released as they become available; all other available fixes and qualified patches may be released via periodic updates. In order to receive security and bug fixes, customers are expected to upgrade their OpenShift environment to the most current supported patch (x.y.z) release.

Maintenance Support

Starting with Red Hat OpenShift 5, this phase commences after the Full Support phase for the respective minor version and lasts 12 months, ending at 24 months after GA.

During the Maintenance Support phase, security errata meeting the standard errata criteria will be released as they become available. Urgent and Selected High Priority Bug Fix Advisories (RHBAs) may be released as they become available. Other Bug Fix and Enhancement (RHEA) Advisories may be released at Red Hat's discretion, but should not be expected.

Extended Life Cycle (ELC)

Extended Life Cycle (ELC) is an optional support phase for designated OpenShift minor releases. It follows Maintenance Support and provides up to 36 additional months of additional support, enabling customers to remain with the same minor release for up to 60 months from general availability.

ELC subscriptions provide technical support, backports of security updates meeting the standard security errata criteria, and urgent-priority bug fixes, allowing for stable production environments for mission-critical applications.

ELC is available for every third OpenShift minor release, beginning with OpenShift 5.2, followed by 5.5 and 5.8. This provides one ELC release per year. All other OpenShift 5 minor releases follow the regular 24-month Full Support and Maintenance Support life cycle.

For operator support and compatibility, consult the Operator Life Cycles guidance and the applicable offering's policy. ELC coverage for OpenShift does not by itself extend the life cycle of every layered product or container image.

After Support Ends

At the end of Maintenance Support, or at the end of the applicable ELC coverage for customers with an ELC subscription, software and documentation will continue to be available to customers; however, no technical support will be provided except assistance to upgrade to a supported version. Full functionality of an OpenShift cluster may require access to hosted services provided by Red Hat; the availability of these services cannot be guaranteed for unmaintained and unsupported versions of OpenShift.

Life Cycle Dates

The table below contains the published life cycle dates for Red Hat OpenShift minor releases. Legacy and current OpenShift entries remain together in this table as they are published.

For a historical reference of life cycle dates/phases please see the Red Hat Product Life Cycles for OpenShift.

Layered Offerings and Components

RHEL CoreOS

RHEL CoreOS is a component of OpenShift and is maintained per the OpenShift life cycle. Each release of OpenShift includes corresponding supported streams of RHEL CoreOS. RHEL CoreOS version information is available on the Tested Configurations Matrix.

Layered Offerings on OpenShift

Red Hat OpenShift provides a variety of runtimes and application frameworks (provided directly from Red Hat) or our partners. All of the layered content or container offerings provided by Red Hat, our partners and/or third party providers maintain an independent lifecycle from OpenShift. As a result, it is important that you check with the content providers to see how that content is tested, certified and supported on the particular version of OpenShift you are running.

For Red Hat provided products or offerings we maintain this lifecycle and testing information in the following locations:

Operator Life Cycles

For Operator life cycles, see the Red Hat OpenShift Operator page.

Universal Base Image

UBI content availability follows the relevant Red Hat Enterprise Linux life cycle. UBI does not have an EUS life cycle phase. An OpenShift extended support subscription does not change the UBI content availability policy.