How the new RHEL 9.2 improves the developer experience

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.2 is now Generally Available (GA). This release provides a flexible and stable foundation to support hybrid cloud innovations. Build, deploy, and manage applications and critical workloads faster and more efficiently with a consistent experience across physical, virtual, private, public cloud, and edge deployments. You can download RHEL 9.2 at no cost as part of the Red Hat Developer program subscription.

In this article, you will learn what's new in RHEL 9.2 and how it improves the developer experience.

Latest language runtimes and tools

Many of the popular languages in web development and enterprise applications have been upgraded in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 such as:

• Python 3.11 is the latest version of the Python programming language. This version includes the critical feature of Specializing Adaptive Interpreters. This feature optimizes operations, enabling code to run faster. Speed improvements from previous Python versions range from 10% to 50%, enhancing overall system performance. 
• Nginx 1.22 is the latest version of the Nginx lightweight web server, which brings new capabilities, such as OpenSSL 3.0 compatibility, hardening against request smuggling, and cross-protocol attacks. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 also supports Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) as part of the Nginx 1.22 update. This helps applications communicate with their peers securely by ensuring the client and server are using the most secure protocol available.
• PostgreSQL 15 is the latest version of a popular open source database in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2. PostgreSQL 15 has a more secure permission model in which create permission is revoked for all users except the database owner. This new permission model constrains ordinary users to user-private schemas. PostgreSQL 15 yields a fourfold improvement in row sorting speed for on-disk and in-memory sorts. This makes a compelling case for the PostgreSQL 15 upgrade, as this is a significant performance improvement over past versions.

The latest versions of toolsets and compilers

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 offers an updated version of Rust 1.66, Go 1.19, and LLVM 15, enabling developers to modernize their applications with the latest toolsets and compilers.

Rust 1.66

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 comes with a stable version of Rust 1.66 with stabilized APIs and functions. Key updates in Rust 1.66 include:

• The thread::scope  API creates a lexical scope in which local variables can be safely borrowed by newly spawned threads, and those threads are all guaranteed to exit before the scope ends.
• The generic associated types (GATs) feature allows traits to be included as type aliases with generic parameters, enabling new abstractions over both types and lifetimes.
• rust-analyzer is a new implementation of the Language Server Protocol, enabling Rust support in many editors. This replaces the former rls package; users need to adjust their editor configuration to migrate to rust-analyzer.

Go 1.19

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 comes with an updated version of Go 1.19. Most of the changes in Go 1.19 are related to the toolchain, runtime, and libraries. Notable changes include:

• The Go memory model has been revised to align with the memory model used by C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Rust and Swift.
• The Go runtime now supports a soft memory limit. This memory limit includes heap memory and all other memory managed by the runtime, excluding external memory sources. This allows Go application to maximize its available memory allocation and improve resource efficiency.

LLVM 15

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 comes with the LLVM 15 toolset with notable changes to the x86, ARM, and PowerPC back end. Notable changes include:

• LLVM 15 now uses open pointers. Pointer types, including i8*, i32*, and void()** are now represented as single ptr types.
• C APIs are updated with these additional functions: LLVMGetCastOpcode, LLVMGetAggregateElement, LLVMDeleteInstruction.

For more details, refer to the LLVM v15 release notes.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Microsoft SQL Server

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a secure, highly available, cost-effective, and consistent performance environment for Microsoft SQL-based applications that run on bare metal, virtual machines, containers, and the hybrid cloud.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 comes with new system roles for MS SQL-based applications. Notable changes include:

• MS SQL system roles allow authenticating directly with Microsoft Active Directory while configuring SQL server automatically.
• MS SQL system roles support automated installation and configuration of Microsoft SQL Server 2022.
• MS SQL system roles include an Always On availability group support for asynchronous-commit mode and read-scale replica configurations.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 brings new features to the web console making common configuration and management tasks easier by using an intuitive browser interface. Key changes in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 web console include the following:

• Enable network-bound disk encryption (NBDE) on the root file system using the web console.
• Disable root account logins on new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2+ installations by default.
• Availability of frequently used combinations of policies and sub-policies of system-wide crypto policies. This enables adherence to industry-specific and site-specific standards.
• Showcase top consumers of disk I/O and network I/O which help administrators to identify which applications and workloads consume most of the resources.

Learn how to manage systems using the RHEL web console.

Security and compliance

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 simplifies how customers manage security and compliance while deploying new systems or managing existing infrastructure. Enhancements to security and compliance in RHEL 9.2 include:

• Availability of realmd iir system automates direct integration of RHEL systems with Microsoft Active Directory.
• Automated checking and hardening of systems by providing SCAP profile in accordance with the CIS benchmark for RHEL 9.

RHEL system roles

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 includes the following new features for system roles:

• New podman RHEL system role to automate the deployment of containers to save time and improve the consistency of deployment.
• New journald RHEL system role to automate persistence configuration of systemd journal on RHEL.
• New ad_integration system role to automate the integration of RHEL systems with Microsoft Active Directory.
• New rhc (remote host configuration) system to register RHEL systems automatically to Red Hat, including Red Hat Insights.
• Enhancements to ha_cluster, logging, Microsoft SQL Server, and cockpit RHEL system roles to call certificate systems to generate corresponding certificates.

Learn more about administration and configuration tasks using RHEL system roles.

Downloads and more information

• Visit the RHEL product page to learn more about what's new in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 and download RHEL 9.2 for free.  
• Read the press release for the RHEL 9.2 announcement.