Understanding RHEL patch add-ons

This topic gives you a brief introduction about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Patch Add-Ons.

BigFix content supporting Red Hat’s Extended Update Support (EUS) and Extended Life Cycle Support (ELS) patching program is available as an add-on to the BigFix Patch, BigFix Lifecycle and BigFix Compliance products.

This guide describes how to enable and use the BigFix EUS/ELS patch content for RHEL.

BigFix ELS Fixlet content is available for RHEL 5, 6 and 7 under BigFix Extended Patch For RHEL 5, 6 & 7 and supports keeping your RHEL 5.11, 6.10 and 7.9 endpoints up to date with ELS patches released by Red Hat.

BigFix EUS content is available for Red Hat 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 under BigFix Extended Patch For RHEL and supports keeping your RHEL 7, RHEL 8 and RHEL 9 boxes secure for the following specified patch minor release levels -
  • RHEL 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7
  • RHEL 8.1, 8.2, 8.4, 8.6, 8.8
  • RHEL 9.0, 9.2, 9.4

Red Hat’s EUS/ELS patches are treated the same as standard Red Hat patches in that they require a paid subscription from Red Hat. Access to Red Hat patches is controlled via subscription certificates via the Red Hat Subscription Management plugin. The goal of the BigFix patch add-on products is to allow a relatively seamless continuation of your organization’s current patch process into the extended support period.