Learn about Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Lightspeed image builders

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Get started with Red Hat image builder

Creating “golden images” of an operating system is a practical way to deploy new systems that are consistent, repeatable, and aligned with your Standard Operating Environment (SOE). That applies whether you are targeting physical hosts, virtual machines, public clouds, or the edge.

Red Hat image builder helps you assemble customized Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) images optimized for those target platforms. You can add packages, apply security profiles, set filesystem layouts, embed registration settings, and include first-boot configuration—so systems come up closer to ready. Image builder is included with your RHEL subscription.

Open Image Builder in the Hybrid Cloud Console

Two ways to use image builder

Managed image builder Self-managed image builder
Where it runs Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console
Navigate to:
Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console → Red Hat Lightspeed → Inventory → Image Builder		 Installed on a RHEL system
RHEL web console
Image builder command line interface
Best when You want to start quickly without standing up build infrastructure You need local or air-gapped builds, or to integrate with on-prem or GitOps automation
Highlights Guided wizard, saved blueprints, cloud upload options, Red Hat Lightspeed integrations (registration, compliance, content templates) Local content sources, multi-target blueprints, all supported blueprint customizations
Data Minimal metadata is shared to the Hybrid Cloud Console All data remains local to your environment

Note: Older documentation and blogs may refer to Red Hat Insights image builder. That hosted service is now Red Hat Lightspeed image builder.

Quick start: build your first image (managed)

These steps get you from sign-in to a downloadable or launchable image. For full detail, use the documentation links below.

  1. Sign in to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console with your Red Hat account.
    If you do not have a RHEL subscription yet, start with a 60-day RHEL trial or a no-cost developer subscription.
  2. Open Image Builder (Hybrid Cloud Console → Red Hat Lightspeed → Inventory → Image Builder).
  3. Click Create image blueprint. Choose a RHEL version, architecture, and target environment (for example a guest .qcow2 image, cloud provider, or installer ISO).
  4. Customize as needed (optional):
    • Registration / activation key
    • Packages and repositories
    • Filesystem layout
    • Compliance / security profile
    • First-boot scripts
  5. On the review step, choose Create blueprint and build image(s). Wait until the image status is Ready.
  6. Download the image or upload it to your target cloud environment.

Prefer to manage your own infrastructure?

Install and run image builder on a RHEL host, then use the RHEL web console or the image-builder CLI. Start with Composing a customized RHEL system image (RHEL 10).

Documentation

Interactive labs

Hands-on practice without building your own lab environment:

Recent blog posts and articles

Curated highlights (newest first). Titles are shown as published.

Videos

Watch the Deploying RHEL playlist on the @RedHatEnterpriseLinux YouTube channel for step-by-step deployment and image builder walkthroughs.

Suggested starting point: Image Builder | Into the Terminal 53 (hosted service, CLI, and web console overview).

Try it now

Build a customized RHEL image in minutes with the managed service on the Hybrid Cloud Console.

Open Image Builder

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