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Red Hat Universal Base Image

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123 pointsUkiahSmith37 comments

It is bit surprising that they do not offer Java UBI image, considering that RH is one of the biggest Java vendors. Instead they are offering dotnet images of all things.

Yes that's kind of strange. That's why I've created one for OpenJDK 8 and 11 yesterday https://hub.docker.com/r/ubi8/openjdk

Unless you consider ancillary information like, IBM owns Redhat and hates Oracle, and Oracle has decided to extract money for anything Java + Enterprise, and UBI is targeted for Enterprise customers.

When you consider that you realize that adding a Java UBI image would just set them up for a fight with Oracle and delay their ability to get moving with UBI.

IBM have their own JVM implementation - they could ship that. Or ship their own build of the OpenJDK like many people do.

Red Hat already distributes Java in the form of openjdk. Surely the packaging format is irrelevant?

IBM does not yet own RedHat, the deal will close in another couple of months. IBM cannot influence anything RedHat does yet.

I actually see this as another reason to stay below the 'lawsuit radar.' A quick search doesn't seem to turn up anything that looks like a showstopper for the acquisition so presumably while it isn't "done" it is likely to complete, would you agree?

If you consider news like https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/leadership-op...

.. it doesn't seem they're hugely afraid of openjdk

Ah, I understand that former Sun employees have a sword to fight with Oracle, but no one else, besides a timid IBM offer, was that interested into buying Sun assets.

Additionally IBM, Red-Hat and Oracle, collaborate on OpenJDK development and are the few set of companies that actually contribute new language features, with Oracle still having like 90% of contributions.

We are working on it. We provide the openjdk package in UBI now, you can build a container image from the base. I plan on publishing a blog entry soon, explaining how. Also, we are working on releasing a pre-built image.

openjdk 11 rhel8 image for openshift shipped yesterday

Java is available for installation from the base UBI image:

  $ docker run --rm registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/ubi yum search openjdk
  java-11-openjdk.x86_64 : OpenJDK Runtime Environment 11
  java-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64 : OpenJDK Runtime Environment 8
  java-11-openjdk-devel.x86_64 : OpenJDK Development Environment 11
  java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel.x86_64 : OpenJDK Development Environment 8

There's no Python 3.6 UBI 8 image... at least looking at the charts in the blog post.

Why would they do a UBI 7 with Python 3.6 but not UBI 8?

Because Red Hat 8 by default ships without an explicit default python version.

See the discussion for the Red Hat 8 release a few days back. It was extensively debated and covered there:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19848965

This doesn't have anything to do with the discussion of Python application streams. The linked blog post contains a table of UBI 7 images that includes python-27 and python-36, and a table of UBI 8 images that only includes python-27.

I think the table is misleadingly presented as comprehensive ("the set of container images"). If you follow the "RHEL 8 How To" link at the bottom of the page, you'll find a larger table that indeed includes python-36. It doesn't seem to be usable out of the box, but I was able to pull it with Docker:

        $ docker pull registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/python-36

Now I need to read up on S2I and podman.

Edit: not sure what I did wrong the first time, but it does work fine in Docker:

        $ docker run --rm -it registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/python-36 python
        Python 3.6.8 (default, Apr  3 2019, 17:26:03)
        [GCC 8.2.1 20180905 (Red Hat 8.2.1-3)] on linux
        Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
        >>>

The exclusion of python36 from the UBI8 table is a mistake. I am working on getting it updated.

What are the differences between this and the previous rhel and rhel-minimal images? Distribution terms (and some subset of packages with different licensing) only? That's no small thing, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

That's pretty much dead on.

What a sham. Very few packages are available in the yum repos from the UBI unless one is a RH customer. This will be a nonstarter unless anyone can install any package from the RHEL collection by default.

Yeah, I think they'll struggle with adoption over the existing docker ecosystem and they should not be introducing such barriers just yet.

Red Hat doesn't necessarily care about adoption unless it leads to subscription revenue. It's easy enough to switch between CentOS and Red Hat. At some point I care enough about enterprise support and Red Hat's add-ons to make that switch and pay for it. And if I don't, Red Hat doesn't care. I really don't understand this pressure for companies to just literally give stuff away. It's hard enough convincing corporate leadership that free-as-in-libre software is a good thing. If people just complain when it's also not free-as-in-gratis, the community is shooting itself in the foot.

TallGuyShort1, you are awesome :-) Thank you for the defense. We will evaluate adding packages to UBI as necessary, but you are right, we can't give all of RHEL away for free...

I think it should be straightforward to install CentOS packages instead.

Sure, but then why stop there and not just go

> FROM centos:8

So the complaint is that this Red Hat product is best for Red Hat's paying customers, and that if you want to use Red Hat's products without being a paying customer, you not only have to use the community edition's packages, but you may as well start with the community edition's base image? Am I understanding that right?

You are fully correct, and it is only a complaint in regard to the submission originally titling UBE as an "Alpine alternative".

UBI lives in between community and product. It's a community thing if run without a subscription and a product if run on RHEL/OpenShift.

Presumably because Red Hat is a business and is trying to make money. You only get updates if you have a subscription. If you aren't a subscriber, these images probably aren't what you want. Get the CentOS equivalents instead. If CentOS doesn't meet your needs but RHEL would, I can only think that you should be a paying customer then.

You get updates with UBI, free of charge.

Thanks for the info, that's good to know. I was speaking form ignorance on that point, obviously (since I was wrong). The point still stands though, Red Hat needs to make money, so we shouldn't expect them to eliminate all their options for monetizing something (which I assume you agree with given your other comments :) )

I do :-)

Because "FROM centos:8" can't exist until after "FROM ubi8" exists. UBI will offer betas for RHEL 9, 10, 11, etc. It solves a chicken and egg problem for partners who need early access.

If there is a particular package you need in UBI, we would be happy to evaluate it. Please file a BZ under RHEL 7 or 8 under the ubi-* Product Component at http://bugzilla.redhat.com

But isn't that the point? This is intended for RHEL users who previously had trouble shipping Docker images based on RHEL that Red Hat would provide support for. Not so much for non-RHEL users.

It will also be attractive for ISVs who want to partner with Red Hat.

Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we compete with Red Hat in a number of areas.

I tried to read this from my iPhone.

I had to fight some sort of pop-up multiple times till I gave up.

I did get to some page that were full of corporate speak.

I got the sense that there is an interesting concept in there but can't be bothered fighting to find it.

Download Firefox Focus from the AppStore and enable it as an ad blocker for Safari. Works perfectly for me

Sorry about that. It's my corporate speak :-)

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