Red Hat Universal Base Image - Content Availability
Overview
Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI) is a subset of Red Hat Enterprise Linux user space software components provided in a container format. This article outlines the intended content availability of Red Hat UBI for customers and partners to effectively plan, build and deploy container based applications.
Red Hat UBI is designed and engineered to be the base layer for your containerized applications, middleware and utilities. This base image is free to use and freely redistributable, but Red Hat only supports Red Hat technologies through subscriptions for Red Hat products.
Red Hat UBI and other Red Hat based container images are available from the Red Hat Container Catalog (RHCC), with additional select packages available for installation and update accessible from Red Hat provided UBI repositories. Red Hat UBI container images are available to customers, ISVs and the community.
Details
Red Hat UBI is designed to provide a minimal footprint of user space packages for the building and distribution of applications as container images. Red Hat UBIs include select software components from major versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat Software Collections (SCL). Per the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle, Red Hat makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure consistency for the available software set across all minor releases, in the event that exceptions are required, notices for software deprecation will be provided as errata.
Software changes to Red Hat UBI are delivered to active RHEL subscribers through individual updates known as errata advisories. These advisories are made available on the public CDN or other authorized portals. Errata advisories can be released individually on an as-needed basis or aggregated as a minor release. Errata advisories will contain security fixes (Red Hat Security Advisories or RHSAs), bug fixes (Red Hat Bug Fix Advisories or RHBAs), or feature enhancements (Red Hat Enhancement Advisories or RHEAs). All errata advisories are tested and qualified against the respective Red Hat Enterprise Linux major version release.
Red Hat will make available only the current versions of software packages required for UBI, including their dependencies on the public CDN. All previous versions of software packages and linked erratas will remain available exclusively to customers with an appropriate RHEL subscription, per the governing RHEL life cycle policy.
Red Hat UBI container images are made available by Red Hat on RHCC, images which have been superseded by a newer release will remain accessible throughout the full and maintenance support phases of the respective RHEL major release. In order to ensure Red Hat UBI container images are pre-built with the latest errata, Red Hat aims to re-build and distribute available Red Hat UBI images on a 6 weekly cadence, or sooner if triggered by the release of a CVE rated as Critical or Important. Customers are expected to utilise the latest Red Hat UBI containers as they are released. Updates will only be provided for the most current container images and packages.
Life Cycle Phases
The content availability for each Red Hat UBI release is governed by the life cycle of the respective RHEL release. For instance, the Universal Base Image version 7 will follow the life cycle phases and dates outlined by the RHEL7 life cycle, with technical support only being available to Red Hat customers with appropriate subscriptions and using UBI on a RH supported stack, outlined in the container support policy. Red Hat provides no assurances of Red Hat UBI availability, life cycle or updates outside of the RHEL life cycle terms for active RHEL subscribers.
NOTE: There is no EUS life cycle phase with UBI. EUS is available to customers only as part of a RHEL Premium subscription.
