Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux®, often abbreviated RHEL, is a Linux distribution developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial server market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for several micro architectures. The list of kernel versions shipped with all RHEL releases can be found here.
Supported Zoned Block Devices
The latest release 9 of RHEL is based on the kernel version 5.14. The default binary kernel shipped with the distribution is configured with zoned block device support enabled, which enable using SMR and ZNS devices. Earlier versions of RHEL do not have support for zoned storage enabled by default.
| Distribution Version | Kernel Version | SCSI ZBC and ATA ZAC Support | NVMe ZNS Support | null_blk Zone Emulation Support | scsi_debug ZBC Emulation Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 3.10.0-123 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.1 | 3.10.0-229 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.2 | 3.10.0-327 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.3 | 3.10.0-514 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.4 | 3.10.0-693 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.5 | 3.10.0-862 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.6 | 3.10.0-957 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.7 | 3.10.0-1062 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.8 | 3.10.0-1127 | No | No | No | No |
| 7.9 | 3.10.0-1160 | No | No | No | No |
| 8 | 4.18.0-80 | No | No | No | No |
| 8.1 | 4.18.0-147 | No | No | No | No |
| 8.2 | 4.18.0-193 | No | No | No | No |
| 8.3 | 4.18.0-240 | No | No | No | No |
| 9 | 5.14.0-70 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Supported File Systems and Device Mapper Targets
Starting with release 9, RHEL pre-compiled kernel package includes loadable module support for file systems and some device mapper targets supporting zoned block devices. Support for the dm-zoned device mapper target is not enabled by default.
| File Systems | Device Mapper | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distribution Version | Kernel Version | f2fs | zonefs | btrfs | linear | flakey | zoned | crypt | |
| ZBC/ZAC | ZNS | ||||||||
| 7 | 3.10.0-123 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.1 | 3.10.0-229 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.2 | 3.10.0-327 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.3 | 3.10.0-514 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.4 | 3.10.0-693 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.5 | 3.10.0-862 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.6 | 3.10.0-957 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.7 | 3.10.0-1062 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.8 | 3.10.0-1127 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 7.9 | 3.10.0-1160 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 8 | 4.18.0-80 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 8.1 | 4.18.0-147 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 8.2 | 4.18.0-193 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 8.3 | 4.18.0-240 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| 9 | 5.14.0-70 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Available Precompiled Packages
RHEL 9 only provides support for zoned block devices with the "standard" pre-compiled packages, that is, regular system tools and libraries packages.
-
System utilities packages:
- util-linux (blkzone utility)
- nvme-cli
- sg3_utils
-
Libraries related packages:
- libblkid (and libblkid-devel)
The file systems user utilities and libraries supporting zoned block devices need to be compiled from source (e.g. zonefs-tools, btrfs-progs, and libzbd). Since RHEL 9 does not include support by default for the dm-zoned device mapper target, compiling and installing the dm-zoned-tools project is not necessary.
Older RHEL Versions
RHEL 8 is based on the kernel version 4.18 which includes zoned block device support. However, this support is not enabled at compile time for the default binary kernel shipped with the distribution.
All releases of RHEL 7 are based on the kernel version 3.10 which lacks zoned block device support.
RHEL 6 being based on the older kernel 2.6.32, zoned block devices are not supported.
Users who require a more complete support for zoned block devices can reconfigure and recompile the RHEL kernel. Using such recompiled kernel may however conflict with Red Hat support. Users should contact Red Hat support for more information.