RH354 – Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 New Features for Experienced Linux Administrators — Lesson 3: Containers, Podman, Security, SELinux, Crypto Policies, and Identity

Learning Objectives

• Evaluate security, resilience, integration, and exception handling for Podman, container tooling, and SELinux.
• Apply crypto policies and identity and security while preserving reviewable technical evidence.
• Recognize and correct the risk where the design works normally but fails under scale, dependency loss, policy enforcement, or integration delay.

Detailed Topics

• Podman: apply the concept to an experienced Linux administrator updating operational practices for an RHEL 8 estate, record the relevant settings or decisions, and explain the operational consequence.
• container tooling: apply the concept to an experienced Linux administrator updating operational practices for an RHEL 8 estate, record the relevant settings or decisions, and explain the operational consequence.
• SELinux: apply the concept to an experienced Linux administrator updating operational practices for an RHEL 8 estate, record the relevant settings or decisions, and explain the operational consequence.
• crypto policies: apply the concept to an experienced Linux administrator updating operational practices for an RHEL 8 estate, record the relevant settings or decisions, and explain the operational consequence.
• identity and security: apply the concept to an experienced Linux administrator updating operational practices for an RHEL 8 estate, record the relevant settings or decisions, and explain the operational consequence.

Instructor Demonstration

The instructor demonstrates containers, podman, security, selinux, crypto policies, and identity by tracing the relevant architecture, commands, configuration, messages, and evidence. The walkthrough highlights how the design works normally but fails under scale, dependency loss, policy enforcement, or integration delay and shows how to isolate the cause without masking dependent issues.

Hands-On Exercise

Introduce a controlled boundary condition and test recovery for Containers, Podman, Security, SELinux, Crypto Policies, and Identity. Add verified outcomes to the RHEL 8 feature comparison, updated administration procedures, compatibility checklist, and adoption plan.

1. Confirm the scope, versions, access, dependencies, and success criteria.
2. Perform the workflow while recording commands, settings, output, and platform events.
3. Test one expected case and one controlled exception specific to this lesson.
4. Retest the correction and document ownership, rollback, and follow-up actions.

Scenario Analysis

• Identify which dependency most strongly influences Podman in the stated scenario.
• Compare two approaches for crypto policies and explain the security, reliability, and support trade-offs.
• Decide what evidence must be retained in the RHEL 8 feature comparison, updated administration procedures, compatibility checklist, and adoption plan before operational acceptance.

Troubleshooting Guidance

Begin with the first observable difference from the expected result. Check security, integration, boundary conditions, and resilience separately, then correlate logs, events, commands, and configuration history. Do not accept the initial assumption that the design works normally but fails under scale, dependency loss, policy enforcement, or integration delay; confirm the cause with a reproducible retest.

Validation Checklist

• The required security, integration, boundary conditions, and resilience were checked and recorded.
• The normal path and a course-specific exception were tested.
• The RHEL 8 feature comparison, updated administration procedures, compatibility checklist, and adoption plan links conclusions to commands, configuration, logs, or other objective evidence.
• Corrective actions, rollback steps, ownership, and handover notes are complete.

Lesson Outcome

Learners can apply Containers, Podman, Security, SELinux, Crypto Policies, and Identity, explain the observed Red Hat platform behavior, and support the result with a reviewable RHEL 8 feature comparison, updated administration procedures, compatibility checklist, and adoption plan.