Oracle Linux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution supported by Oracle and built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Some of the special features of Oracle Linux include a custom-build and rigorously-tested Linux kernel called “Oracle Unbreakable Kernel”, tight integration with Oracle’s hardware and software products including most database applications, and “zero downtime patching” – a feature that enables administrators to update the kernel without a reboot.

Oracle Enterprise Linux is a freely distributed operating system based and compatible with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution. It is an enterprise-ready server Linux OS designed to be used on small and medium-sized businesses. Oracle Linux is free to download, use and distribute and is provided in a variety of installation and deployment methods. Installation media (ISO images) for Oracle Linux (and Oracle VM) are freely available from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.

The Oracle Linux operating system is engineered for open cloud infrastructure. It delivers leading performance, scalability, reliability and security for enterprise SaaS and PaaS workloads as well as traditional enterprise applications. Oracle Linux Support offers access to award-winning Oracle support resources and Linux support specialists, zero-downtime updates using Ksplice, additional management tools such as Oracle Enterprise Manager and lifetime support, all at a low cost. Unlike many other commercial Linux distributions, Oracle Linux is easy to download and completely free to use, distribute and update.

Latest Linux Innovations Oracle Linux comes with a choice of two kernels, the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK), which is installed and enabled by default, and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel. UEK tracks the latest Linux kernel releases, supplying more innovation than other commercial Linux kernels while providing binary compatibility with applications certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. UEK is designed for enterprise workloads requiring stability, scalability and performance, such as Oracle Database. Oracle Linux delivers advanced features for supporting and optimizing the latest enterprise hardware and software. For example:

• Ksplice Zero Downtime Updates –

Available to Oracle Linux Premier Support customers, Ksplice technology updates the kernels, hypervisors and critical user space libraries without requiring a reboot or interruption. Known Exploit Detection in Ksplice enables auditing and alerting for known privilege escalation vulnerabilities. Only Oracle Linux offers this unique capability, making it possible to keep up with important kernel and user space updates without the operational cost and disruption of rebooting for every update.

• Security and Compliance – Oracle Linux 7 has received both a Common Criteria (CC) Certification which was performed against the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) General Purpose Operating System Protection Profile (OSPP) v4.1 as well as a FIPS 140-2 validation of its cryptographic modules.
• XFS File System – XFS is a journaling file system known for extreme scalability with near native I/O performance. XFS is the default filesystem for Oracle Linux 7 and Oracle Linux 8. Beginning with Oracle Linux 6.4, customers with Premier Support subscriptions can receive support for the XFS file system at no additional charge.
• Data Integrity – Oracle Linux supports the T10 Protection Information Model (T10- PIM) to help prevent silent data corruption.

Running Oracle Linux with UEK gives you additional advanced features and security enhancements. Some of which are:

• Containers and Orchestration – Safely and securely run multiple applications on a single host, without the risk of interference with each other. Docker containers are lightweight and resource friendly, which saves on rack space and power. Oracle Container Runtime for Docker and Oracle Container Services for use with Kubernetes provide a comprehensive container and orchestration environment for the delivery of microservices and next generation application development.
• DTrace – DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework that provides a powerful infrastructure to permit administrators, developers and service personnel to concisely answer arbitrary questions about the behavior of the operating system and user programs in real time.
• AMD Secure Memory Encryption (SME) – Oracle Linux 7 with UEK Release 5 enables the hardware accelerated memory encryption, available on AMD EPYC processors based systems, for data-in-use protection.
• Oracle Cluster File System 2 (OCFS2) – OCFS2 is a general purpose, extent-based clustered file system that Oracle developed and contributed to the Linux community. It provides an open source, enterprise-class alternative to proprietary cluster file systems, and provides both high performance and high availability.
• Oracle Workload Optimizations – Some of the many optimizations available are:
• Enhanced memory performance, by attempting to better locate a process near its memory and better placement of workloads that do not fit on one NUMA node.
• Up to 3.6x performance improvement of SPECjbb through optimizations that help eliminate lock contention.
• Simple to use SSDs as a block cache for slower block devices with bcache. Supports many millions of IOps on NVM-Express and high-end PCI-E devices with a new, scaled multiqueue block layer subsystem. Flexible Support Options, Higher Value Oracle is the only vendor in the industry that offers a complete Linux-based solution stack – applications, middleware, database, management tools, operating system, virtualization, and hardware. With Oracle as your Linux support provider, you have a single point of contact for all your support needs. Oracle delivers enterprise-class support for Oracle Linux and the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, including premier backports, indemnification and testing.

Oracle Support for Oracle Linux installations is significantly lower in cost than competing vendors’ Linux support. You are free to decide which of your systems should be covered by a support subscription, and at which level each of them should be supported. This makes Oracle Linux an ideal choice for both your development and production systems. You decide which support coverage is the best for each of your systems individually, while keeping all of them up-to-date and secure with the same level of bug fixes and security errata. Oracle Linux is also the Linux development standard at Oracle.

The same Oracle products customers deploy in their data center and in the cloud were developed using Oracle Linux. In addition, Oracle understands mission-critical application requirements and Oracle Linux is developed and tested to provide the reliability, scalability, security and performance for these demanding enterprise workloads

Comprehensive Management Software

The right to use Oracle Enterprise Manager is included with every Oracle Linux Support subscription at no additional cost. Oracle Enterprise Manager is a feature-rich systems and applications management suite, capable of managing thousands of servers from a central and easy to use web-based interface. To ease migrations from existing infrastructures, Oracle Linux also includes and supports Spacewalk.

Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment

Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment is a curated set of open source software selected from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®) projects. Oracle uses a process of curation, integration, testing, and developer preview to ensure these solutions are enterprise grade prior to delivery to Oracle Linux Premier subscription customers.

Enterprise High Availability

Oracle Clusterware, an enterprise high availability software solution, is included with Oracle Linux Support subscriptions. Oracle Clusterware enables independent servers to operate together as a single system and provides high availability for both Oracle and third-party workloads. Oracle also provides support for Corosync and Pacemaker, the de-facto standard open source high availability solution for Linux, along with support for HAproxy and keepalived which provide load balancing services. Virtualization Made Easy With your Oracle Linux Support subscription there is no need to worry about whether the system will run as a physical or virtual instance because it is all included in the price of a single subscription. Users can run Oracle Linux on the host and as many Oracle Linux guest instances as desired, without additional cost. Oracle Linux includes support for the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor, including support for Intel VT-x and VT-d hardware extensions along with the Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) for AMD-V enabled processors. Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager is the server virtualization management platform that can be easily deployed to configure, monitor, and manage an Oracle Linux KVM with enterprise-grade performance and support from Oracle. Oracle VM VirtualBox is shipped with Oracle Linux. It is used by millions of developers around the world to develop, test, and build virtual appliances. Customers develop applications on a desktop and get ready for deployment into Oracle Cloud and other cloud services. Free and Easy to Download, Install, Use and Distribute Oracle Linux can be downloaded, used and distributed free of charge, with easy access to installation ISOs. Oracle provides access to the individual RPM packages, including

4 | ORACLE LINUX DATA SHEET O R A C L E D A T A S H E E T

all security updates and bug fixes (errata) via yum repositories, without requiring a support subscription; excluding updates to Ksplice and Oracle Linux 5, which may require Oracle Linux Premier or Extended Support. The source code of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is also available via public git repositories, providing a complete and detailed revision history (including patches and comments) of the operating system core. Established Member of the Linux Community Many of Oracle’s Linux engineers participate in the Linux community as maintainers of projects in the upstream Linux source process, and work closely with other maintainers. This work helps to develop features and improvements that benefit Linux overall and can later be delivered as part of Oracle Linux. Oracle Linux Partner Ecosystem Oracle works closely with industry leading ISV and IHV partners to enable fully tested, certified and supported solutions for Oracle Linux and virtualization customers. With an extensive ecosystem, customers can improve time to market and simplify deployment. A thriving ISV ecosystem allows customers to rest assured that when they want to move workloads between different deployment models – Oracle Linux on-premises to Oracle Linux in the cloud – the transition can be virtually seamless. The Hardware Compatibility Program helps ensure major and emerging server and storage hardware solutions are qualified on Oracle Linux and Oracle VM.

Oracle Linux is a proven operating environment that is optimized for performance, scalability, reliability and security. It powers Oracle Cloud and Oracle Engineered Systems, is used extensively by tens of thousands of customers globally, and is certified to run software from thousands of independent software vendors. Oracle’s Autonomous Linux, along with Oracle OS Management Service, is the first and only autonomous operating environment that helps greatly reduce complexity and human error to deliver increased cost savings, security, and availability. Oracle Linux Premier Support is included with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure subscriptions at no additional cost. It provides access to award-winning Oracle support resources and Linux support specialists, zero-downtime updates using Oracle Ksplice, and cloud developer and management tools. Oracle Linux offers the most cost-effective and integrated operating environment for Oracle Cloud, with the best platform experience for Oracle and non-Oracle applications alike.

Oracle Linux 7.6 delivers extreme performance, advanced scalability, and reliability for enterprise applications and systems. Optimized for enterprise workloads, Oracle Linux is the only operating system to offer zero-downtime updates.

Basic Installation

1. Boot from the DVD. Use the up arrow to pick the “Install Oracle Linux 7.0” option and hit the return key.
2. Select the appropriate language and select the “Set keyboard to default layout for selected language” option, then click the “Continue” button.
3. You are presented with the “Installation Summary” screen. You must complete any marked items before you can continue with the installation. Depending on your requirements, you may also want to alter the default settings by clicking on the relevant links.Click the “Installation Destination” link.
4. If you are happy to use automatic partitioning of the whole disk, click the “Done” button to return to the previous screen.If you want to modify the partitioning configuration, check the “I will configure partitioning” option, click the “Done” button and work through the partitioning screens.
5. It would be advisable to click on the “Software Selection” link and pick the following options if you want a GUI console.
   • Base Environment > Server with GUI
   • Add-Ons for Selected Environment > Compatibility Libraries
   • Add-Ons for Selected Environment > Development Tools

   Once you have completed your selections, click the “Done” button.

   

6. Once you have completed your alterations to the default configuration, click the “Begin Installation” button.
7. Click the “Root Password” link.
8. https://sitestoresac.blob.core.windows.net/sac-multi/uploads/sites/33/2020/10/Secureanycloud_azure_aws_gcp_marketplace_4-2.pngEnter the root password and click the “Done” button.Click the “User Creation” link.
9. Enter the user details and select the “Make this user administrator” option, then click the “Done” button.
10. Wait for the installation to complete. When prompted, click the “Reboot” button.
11. Click the “License Information” link. Check the “I accept the license agreement” checkbox and click the “Done” button. When you return to the previous screen, click the “Finish Configuration” button.
12. Decide if you want to use Kdump and click the “Forward” button
13. .
14. Decide if you want to set up software updates and click the “Forward” button. If you chose not to register with ULN, you will need to confirm you decision also.
15. 
16. Click the “Forward” button.
17. 
18. On the sign-in screen, click on the user you want to log in as.
19. Enter the password and click the “Sign In” button.
20. Accept the language by clicking the “Next” button.
21. Accept the input sources by clicking the “Next” button.
22. Connect to existing data in the cloud, or just click the “Next” button.
23. Click the “Start using Oracle Linux Server” button.
24. You are now presented with the console screen.

Network Configuration

• If you are using DHCP to configure your network settings, then ignore the following network configuration screens, otherwise click the network icon on the top bar and click the “Network Settings” link. You are then presented with the “Settings” screen. Highlight “Wired”, flick the switch to “ON” and click the cog icon at the bottom-right.
• Click the IPv4 option, select the “Manual” method and enter the appropriate IP address and subnet mask, default gateway and primary DNS, then click the “Apply” button.
• Close the “Network” dialog.

Customizing Software

• You can customize the installed packages using the “Software” dialog (Applications > System Tools Software).

SELinux

• If the OS is to be used for an Oracle installation, it is easier if Secure Linux (SELinux) is disabled or switched to permissive. To do this edit the “/etc/selinux/config” file, making sure the SELINUX flag is set as follows.

  SELINUX=permissive

  If SELinux is configured after installation, the server will need a reboot for the change to take effect.

Firewall

• If the OS is to be used for an Oracle installation, it is easier if the firewall is disabled. This can be done by issuing the following commands from a terminal window as the “root” user.

  # systemctl stop firewalld
  # systemctl disable firewalld

You can install and configure it later if you wish.

SSH

• Make sure the SSH daemon is started using the following commands.

  # systemctl start sshd.service
  # systemctl enable sshd.service

Cognosys provides hardened images of Oracle Linux 7.6 on all public cloud i.e. AWS.

Oracle Linux 7.6 Installation