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Operating systems

Rocky Linux

The other RHEL rebuild: the same commands as AlmaLinux, a ten-year lifecycle per major release, and EPEL for what the base repositories do not carry.

Rocky Linux is a free rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, started after CentOS Linux changed direction and run by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation. It is binary compatible with RHEL, so RPMs and vendor instructions written for RHEL apply as they are.

Install it from the panel ​

In the client area, open your server, then Reinstall the server. Pick the Rocky Linux tile, open its version list and choose the one you want, then fill in the partitioning, the software RAID, the hostname and the password below the grid. The form itself is described in reinstalling your OS.

Careful

A reinstall erases every drive in the machine. There is no undo and we keep no copy: take your backups off the server first.

Same family, same commands ​

Everything in AlmaLinux applies here without change: dnf for packages, firewalld running from the first boot, SELinux enforcing, nmcli for the interfaces. Read that page for the details, they are not repeated.

bash
dnf upgrade --refresh
cat /etc/rocky-release

The lifecycle ​

A major release carries about ten years of support, and minor releases land inside it without asking you to reinstall. That is the reason to pick this family: a server you set up once and only patch.

Switching between Rocky and AlmaLinux later is possible, both projects ship a migration script, but it is not something to plan for. Pick one and stay.

EPEL ​

The base repositories are deliberately narrow. Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux carries most of what you will miss:

bash
dnf install -y epel-release
dnf upgrade --refresh

Note

EPEL is maintained by the Fedora project, not by Rocky. Its packages do not carry the same lifecycle promise as the base repositories, which matters for a machine meant to sit untouched for years.

Good to know

Rocky and AlmaLinux are the answer when a vendor says "RHEL 8" or "RHEL 9" and you do not want a Red Hat subscription. CentOS is not that answer any more: see its page.

Where to go next ​

  • First connection: your own user, SSH keys, password logins off.
  • IP addresses: configuring the additional addresses on the fresh system.
  • The console: watching the install, and getting in when the network does not answer.

Reviewed on September 15, 2026