RHEL: Behind the scenes of a simple backport
Red Hat News, Thursday, June 22,2023
Bug fixes and security updates are essential components of the value of a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscription. These ensure that you, as a RHEL subscriber, have access to the latest essential updates so your systems remain protected and refreshed. And it's all possible thanks to Red Hat's practice of backporting patches.
A "backport" is when a critical fix from a new version of software is applied to an old but supported version. Not all operating systems or distributions can manage that workload, but stability and security is important to Red Hat. When Red Hat backports a patch, you benefit from important security updates and bug fixes without the need of upgrading to, and testing, a new version of the software.
But what does "backport" really mean? How is it done? In this blog post, I'm going to give you a grand tour of the process from start to finish.