Microsoft Publishes First Stable Update for Azure Linux 3.0
Microsoft has released the first stable update of the new branch Azure Linux 3.0, previously known as CBL-Mariner. This distribution aims to serve as a universal platform for Linux systems used in cloud infrastructure, EDGE systems, and various Microsoft services. The project is focused on unifying Linux solutions within Microsoft and simplifying maintenance for Linux systems across different purposes. The projects are distributed under the MIT license.
Builds of packages for Azure Linux 3.0 are available for architectures Aarch64 and X86_64, with the installation image size being 740 MB. Among the changes in this new version:
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.6 (previously used core 5.15) with support for Live Patching, allowing for patching vulnerabilities in the kernel without rebooting.
- New versions of packages have been proposed, including Systemd 255, Glibc 2.38, GCC 13.2, Clang 18.1, Openssl 3.3, RPM 4.18.2, Ruby 3.3.0, BIND 9.20, Containerd 1.7.13, KUNC 1.1.12, OSTREE 2024.5, Rust 1.75, Perl 5.38, Python 3.12.3, and Qemu 8.2.0.
- The Selinux access control system is now set to “Enforcing” mode by default.
- The unified hierarchy of Cgroups V2 is used by default, offering a common hierarchy for all types of resources.
- New tools have been added for migrating from other distributions (OSSKU in-Place Migration) in the Microsoft Azure cloud, allowing for easy replacement of existing distributions with Azure Linux.
- Support for new NVIDIA GPUs, such as A100 and H100, has been added, along with the NVIDIA GPU Operator to automate NVIDIA drivers on nodes running Azure Linux.
The Azure Linux distribution provides a standard set of basic packages as a foundation for creating containers, hosts, and services in cloud infrastructures. More complex solutions can be built on Azure Linux by adding additional packages, maintaining a consistent base for all systems