Can Red Hat re-base driver versions in older minor product releases?

Environment

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Issue

Customers who standardise internal builds on specific older minor releases of RHEL can experience issues which are resolved with later upstream/third-party drivers. Is it possible for Red Hat to re-base (update to newer upstream releases wholesale) driver versions in older minor product releases so that the customer can continue to deploy the older kernel in their standard build? For example, this scenario has been experienced with the CCISS driver.

Resolution

Red Hat does not rebase driver versions in older minor product releases such as RHEL5.5. To provide the stability enterprises look for in our offerings, driver rebases require an extensive amount of quality assurance testing. This amount is only feasible economically for new minor (or major) releases.

When we are dealing with an issue that can be analysed in sufficient detail so that a specific, contained patch can be identified or developed to address it, then we can consider such a patch for backporting into an older minor product release.

The concept of backporting is covered in some detail at https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/backporting/, with an emphasis on how we use it to address security vulnerabilities.

The adjectives "specific" and "contained" are key here - only when a patch is sufficiently granular can we consider it for inclusion into an asychronous update (erratum, EUS erratum etc. as opposed to a synchronous update - a scheduled major or minor release), as only then the amount of quality assurance testing needed to ensure it meets our stability goals is economically feasible to be performed in isolation. Version rebases are not granular enough and can only be tested in an economically feasible fashion to a sufficient degree to meet our enterprise level stability goals when they are tested as part of scheduled integrated product testing, in other words as part of our release process for a new minor or major release.

Under these circumstances, Red Hat strongly recommend moving to a later RHEL5 minor release. Alternatively, a Red Hat Global Engineering Services engagement could help to deliver a custom kernel build of the older minor release kernel with a re-based driver and to deliver support for it.

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