Rocky Linux 8 Arm64

Azure Operating Systems

Rocky Linux 8 for 64 bit Arm, a free RHEL 8 compatible enterprise Linux base for Azure Cobalt 100 Arm virtual machines.

Base

Hardened build

minimal ports, security patches applied at build time

Access

Unique credentials

generated on first boot, readable only by root

Verified

Boots working

services pass a health gate before release

Support

24/7, 365 days

by email and live chat, 24 hour response SLA

Overview

Rocky Linux 8 is a community enterprise Linux distribution produced by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation to be binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, running the 4.18 kernel and following the RHEL 8 lifecycle. This is the 64 bit Arm (AArch64) build, 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.

This listing ships 8.10, the final release of the Rocky Linux 8 series, which remains in security maintenance until May 2029 and still receives errata. The image stays on the rolling Rocky Linux 8 repositories rather than an archived snapshot, so your update path keeps working. Note that the RHEL 8 aarch64 kernel uses a 64k page size, where RHEL 9 and 10 use 4k: that is visible to huge page, database and JVM tuning, and is documented in the deployment guide.

It suits teams carrying an established RHEL 8 or CentOS 8 estate onto Arm without changing major release: application tiers certified against RHEL 8, build and CI runners producing el8 packages, and cost sensitive fleets moving to Arm silicon.

Why the cloudimg image

The cloudimg image is a Rocky Linux 8 Arm64 base brought fully up to date at build time and again immediately before capture, booted on its newest kernel with the superseded kernel removed so nothing stale is left for a scanner to flag, with SELinux left in Enforcing mode and the root password locked.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 over SSH at all, and SSH host keys and the machine id are regenerated per machine, so no two instances share a secret or an identity. SSH on port 22 is the only off-box listener: rpcbind, which the stock image leaves enabled with four sockets bound on port 111, ships disabled, as does the Bluetooth stack that the security patch pulls in on a machine with no radio, and each is one command to re-enable. Automatic updates, which the stock Rocky Arm64 cloud image does not ship at all, are installed, armed and enabled, never auto rebooting, so the machine keeps patching itself. Because this release predates the SSH drop in directory, the hardening is applied to the main SSH configuration file, which is the only one this version reads. 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

RHEL 8 compatible application hosting on Azure Cobalt 100 Arm virtual machines
Moving an established RHEL 8 or CentOS 8 workload onto Arm
Arm build and CI runners producing el8 packages

Overview

Why the cloudimg image

Common uses

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