Base
Hardened build
minimal ports, security patches applied at build time
CentOS Stream 9 Arm64
Azure
Operating Systems
CentOS Stream 9 for 64 bit Arm, the free, continuously delivered upstream of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, on Azure Cobalt 100.
Overview
CentOS Stream is a free, open source Linux distribution maintained by the CentOS Project and sponsored by Red Hat. Stream 9 is the continuously delivered branch that sits just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, so it carries the RHEL 9 package set and the 5.14 kernel line, and it is where the next RHEL 9 minor release is built in the open. This is the 64 bit Arm (AArch64) build with the standard 4k page size kernel, for the Arm based virtual machine sizes powered by the Azure Cobalt 100 processor, which pair strong per core performance with lower cost than comparable x86 sizes.
CentOS Stream has no minor releases: VERSION_ID stays 9 for the life of the stream and dnf upgrade always moves the machine to the current package set, so there is nothing to pin and no vault to fall off. CentOS Stream 9 is supported until 31 May 2027, the end of the RHEL 9 full support phase.
This image is a clean, fully patched CentOS Stream 9 Arm64 foundation to build your own services on.
Why the cloudimg image
The cloudimg image is a CentOS Stream 9 Arm64 base brought fully up to date at build time and again immediately before capture, with SELinux left in Enforcing mode and the root password locked. No credential is baked in: access is by the SSH key you choose at launch, root cannot log in with a password, and SSH host keys and the machine id are regenerated per machine, so no two instances share a secret or an identity. Four defects in the upstream cloud image are fixed: Accelerated Networking no longer leaves every boot degraded with a failed network online check, the rpcbind portmapper that the upstream image leaves listening on port 111 is switched off so SSH on port 22 is the only network listener, the Arm serial console is corrected to ttyAMA0 so Azure boot diagnostics and the serial console actually work, and the clock is reset from US Eastern to UTC. Automatic security updates are installed, armed and enabled, BaseOS, AppStream and Extras stay enabled so you keep a working update path, no subscription or licence key is required, and 24/7 support is included.
Common uses
- Developing and testing against the next RHEL 9 minor release before it ships, on Arm
- Building and validating RPMs and containers for the RHEL 9 ecosystem on Azure Cobalt 100 Arm virtual machines
- Cost efficient Arm build and CI runner fleets on a current EL9 userspace
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