Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI)

Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI) are OCI-compliant, container-based, operating system images with complementary runtime languages and packages that are freely redistributable. Like previous base images, they are built from portions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). You can find UBI images in the Red Hat container catalog, and they are buildable and deployable anywhere.

UBI are designed to be a foundation for cloud-native and web applications use cases developed in containers. Because the images are freely redistributable, you can build a containerized application using UBI, push it to your registry server, easily share it with others, then deploy it on non-Red Hat platforms. And since the application is built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can be confident that Red Hat's UBI are reliable, secure, and performant.

Red Hat Universal Base Images

Today, your Linux containers are not really portable - you have to build one for each destination platform. Until now. The new Red Hat Universal Base Images enable you to build your container ONCE and freely redistribute it to multiple deployment platforms - whether Red Hat or not. Read more about UBI below, or visit the Red Hat container tools topic.

In this brief video, Red Hat's Scott McCarty demonstrates Red Hat Universal Base Images by creating a container image on Fedora, then deploying it on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.

Red Hat UBI is a Verified Publisher on Docker Hub

Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI) on Docker Hub are now available as Verified Publisher images in a variety of configurations and sizes, including Micro, the newly announced variation with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 that delivers the smallest UBl footprint for edge computing.

UBIs are Open Container Initiative (OCI)-compliant, freely redistributable, container base operating system images that include complimentary runtime languages and packages, but previously, you could only get these images from the Red Hat container catalog.

Now, you can get them in Docker Hub, making it even easier for you to build and deploy UBI-based containers anywhere.

Read the press release

What's included in UBI?

Less than the full operating system, the Red Hat Universal Base Image includes three things:

Base Images

A set of three base images (Minimal, Standard, and Multi-service) are provided to provide optimum starting points for a variety of use cases.

Runtime Languages

A set of language runtime images (PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Node.js) enable developers to start coding out of the gate with the confidence that a Red Hat built container image provides.

Complementary packages

A set of associated YUM repositories/channels include RPM packages and updates that allow users to add application dependencies and rebuild UBI container images anytime they want.

3 UBI base image options

Red Hat provides these three base images for starting your container development:

Standard

Image name: ubi

-Unified, OpenSSL crypto stack
-Full YUM stack
-Includes useful basic OS tools (tar, gzip, vi, etc.)

UBI Platform documentation

Minimal

Image name: ubi-minimal

-Minimized pre-installed content set
-No suid binaries
-Minimal package manager (install, update, and remove)

UBI minimal documentation

Multi-service

Image name: ubi-init

-run mysql and httpd side-by-side in the same container
-run systemd in a container on start
-Enables services at build time

UBI Multi-service documentation

Container development tools

Learn about Linux containers and Red Hat container development tools.

Container Topic page

Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI)

As a developer, you need a source of container base images that have many of the qualities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but that can be consumed by your users/customers without acquiring a Red Hat subscription.

Red Hat provides this with Universal Base Images (UBI), a subset of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for building applications in containers - what’s different is they have their own unique EULA which means they are freely redistributable.

UBI provides trusted and redistributable base images. Learn all you need to know about UBI in this free resource.

Download ebook now

Container certification

Are you a software provider or Independent Software Vendor (ISV)?

In order to meet enterprise customers' security and support requirements, software vendors can take advantage of Red Hat Container Certification. Once certified, partner applications are fully supported by Red Hat when deployed on Red Hat container platforms, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Red Hat OpenShift.

Partner benefits of Red Hat Container Certification

Continuous monitoring of certified images to identify security risks or outdated components.
Security vulnerabilities can be automatically updated and published.
Reduce development costs by standardizing on a robust container foundation.
Prepares you for Red Hat OpenShift Operator Certification to manage your application with the best enterprise distribution of Kubernetes.

Learn more about Red Hat Technical Partner Program and Container Certification.

UBI and container blog articles for you

Article

05/30/2023

Build an all-in-one edge manager with single-node OpenShift

Design and build an all-in-one Red Hat Device Edge management solution using single-node OpenShift with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Article

05/29/2023

How to use OpenShift GitOps to deploy applications

Learn how to set up an automated method to deploy your application to OpenShift clusters using a GitOps approach.

Article

05/23/2023

Podman Desktop 1.0: Local container development made easy

Discover the advantages of Podman Desktop, which provides a user-friendly interface for developers to manage containers and Kubernetes from a local

UBI Frequently Asked Questions

If you have questions about Red Hat Universal Base Images, we hope this FAQ document has your answers.

UBI FAQ