Red Hat has announced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.3, the latest update to its enterprise-focused Linux distro, alongside RHEL 9.9.
Under the hood, RHEL 10.3 ships with Linux kernel 6.12, including Red Hat’s patches and backported improvements. Kernel changes include stronger Integrity Measurement Architecture enforcement, preventing modified executables on previously excluded filesystems from bypassing integrity checks.
Kernel Samepage Merging gains an option to deduplicate only zero-filled memory pages, reducing scanning overhead in virtualization environments. Plus, the Real-Time Linux Analysis framework now supports executing custom eBPF programs.
Another main addition is the general availability of sealed images for RHEL image mode. These provide cryptographic integrity verification across the boot process, from firmware and bootloader to the kernel and root filesystem. Combined with a read-only root filesystem, this lets systems reject unauthorized modifications rather than execute potentially compromised content.
On the system management side, the MCP server for RHEL has moved from Developer Preview to general availability. Available as an RPM through the RHEL extensions repository, it allows AI assistants access to system information for diagnostics and troubleshooting.
In addition, the MCP server can now query historical Performance Co-Pilot metrics over SSH, letting administrators investigate past performance issues and correlate system events. Red Hat also provides integration with the open-source Goose CLI agent, which can execute diagnostic commands, automate administrative tasks, and assist with troubleshooting.
Moreover, the RHEL command-line assistant now supports customer-hosted AI models through OpenShift AI. The self-managed functionality remains in Developer Preview.
Developers get GCC Toolset 16, featuring GCC 16.2.1 and GNU Binutils 2.46. The compiler changes its default C++ standard from C++17 to C++20, adds support for newer C++26 features, and introduces optimizations for AMD Zen 6 and newer Intel processors. Distributed separately through AppStream, the toolset can coexist with the default system compiler.
Other development updates include LLVM 22, Go 1.27, Rust 1.97, .NET 11, Node.js 26 LTS, and PHP 8.4. The GNU Debugger has also been updated to GDB 17.2, adding improved support for hardware-assisted control-flow protection, RISC-V debugging, and the Debugger Adapter Protocol.
For database workloads, Valkey has been updated to version 8.1. The release improves memory efficiency, encrypted connections, replication performance, and cluster failover. In addition, an optional valkey-rdma module adds Remote Direct Memory Access support for workloads needing high-throughput data access.
Monitoring also improves with new Grafana dashboards for Performance Co-Pilot, including a ready-made dashboard for vLLM inference servers that displays request latency, token generation throughput, queue activity, and cache efficiency.
Security improvements extend to post-quantum cryptography, with new capabilities aimed at helping organizations prepare for CNSA 2.0 requirements.
Finally, Red Hat has confirmed support for in-place upgrades from RHEL 9.9 to RHEL 10.3 using Leapp. Organizations still running RHEL 8.10 can upgrade to RHEL 9.9 through the same framework.
For more information, see the announcement or the detailed RHEL 10.3 release notes. The release is available through the Red Hat Customer Portal.
