Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server RHEL 8 Update Version 8.5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.5 introduces major installer, security, networking, storage, and system role enhancements. It also includes kernel 4.18.0-348, updated application streams and toolsets, and fixes for installation, security, cloud, and virtualization issues. Reference IDs: RHSA-2021:5171, RHBA-2021:5260, CVE-2021-23336, CVE-2021-29921.

• System-wide crypto policies now support scopes and wildcards in custom policies, allowing different algorithms per backend.
• FUTURE crypto policy disables CBC ciphers; custom policies also add AES-192 cipher support.
• Rsyslog adds an OpenSSL TLS network stream driver for encrypted TCP and RELP transport.
• SCAP Security Guide adds new compliance profiles: ACSC ISM, updated CIS profiles, DISA STIG V1R3, STIG with GUI, and ANSSI High.
• OpenSCAP now validates digitally signed SCAP source data streams and rejects invalid signatures.
• SELinux policy fixes include preventing staff_u users from switching to unconfined_r and enabling GDM to set the GRUB boot_success flag.
• Libreswan, GnuTLS, and OpenSSL received security-related fixes, including TLS and IPsec improvements.
• Python urllib parsing behavior changed to mitigate CVE-2021-23336.
• Python ipaddress now rejects IPv4 addresses with leading zeros to mitigate CVE-2021-29921.

• RHEL installation now continues even if Insights registration fails during setup.
• ReaR fixes multiple backup and recovery issues, including rsync handling, EFI/ESP recovery, network-share backup loss, and multipath recovery on IBM Power.
• Kdump and vmcore capture issues were fixed for several scenarios, including CPU hot-plug, memory hot-plug, SSH/NFS targets, and some KVM guests.
• NetworkManager and firewalld received fixes for traffic handling, nftables backend support, and firewall policy objects.
• SSSD, FreeRADIUS, Samba, and Directory Server received multiple reliability and configuration fixes.
• GCC Toolset 11, glibc, and other development tools received bug fixes and compatibility improvements.
• Several desktop, virtualization, and cloud issues were fixed, including GDM network access, EC2 SSH key generation, Azure routing, and VM boot problems.

• Image Builder now supports filesystem customization, overriding official repositories, and creating bootable installer images.
• RHEL for Edge adds a Simplified Installer and raw image support.
• Red Hat Connector is now fully supported for Insights remediation workflows.
• Multipath TCP is now fully supported.
• NetworkManager now supports accept-all traffic mode and nftables as a firewall backend.
• New module streams include Ruby 3.0, nginx 1.20, Node.js 16, and updated PHP, Squid, and Mutt versions.
• OpenJDK 17 is now available, and OpenJDK 11/8 were updated.
• New or enhanced RHEL system roles include VPN, Timesync NTS, Storage VDO support, Postfix full support, and HA Cluster as Technology Preview.
• GNOME login screen can now connect to networks and display a security classification banner.
• Podman, Buildah, Skopeo, and related container tooling were updated; container image signature verification is now supported by default.

• GUI installation may fail if the system is unregistered from CDN before repository refresh completes.
• Registration fails for user accounts that belong to multiple organizations.
• Image Builder upgrades from lorax-composer to osbuild-composer may not preserve blueprint state automatically.
• Rootless containers created with fuse-overlayfs on RHEL 8.4 and earlier may show removed files when used on RHEL 8.5+.
• Some cloud and virtualization scenarios still require workarounds, including certain Azure, Hyper-V, VMware, and PowerVM cases.
• Several storage and kernel limitations remain, including LVM writecache restrictions and some crash-kernel edge cases.

• Target release: RHEL 8.5 GA.
• Release date: November 9, 2021.
• Kernel version: 4.18.0-348.
• To install some new streams or tools, use yum module install or yum install as documented in the release notes.
• Some features require explicit configuration changes, such as enabling nvidia-drm.modeset=1, setting update-crypto-policies, or adjusting sssd.conf and chrony.conf.
• Several deprecated items should be avoided for new deployments, including network scripts, SPICE, xinetd, and older Kickstart options.

Product Information

Vendor: Red Hat

Product: Enterprise Linux Server

Product type: Software

Application category: Utilities

Platform: Linux

Variant: RHEL 8

Version: 8.5

Vendor release date: Nov 9, 2021

Original release notes: View on vendor site

Published on updatealert.io: Aug 11, 2026