What's New in RHEL 6

What's New in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 features the following file system enhancements

File System Encryption (Technology Preview)

You can now encrypt a file system at mount using eCryptfs1, which provides an encryption layer on

top of an actual file system. This "pseudo-file system" allows per-file and file name encryption, which

offers more granular encryption than encrypted block devices.

File System Caching (Technology Preview)

FS-Cache1 allows you to use local storage for caching data from file systems served over the network

(e.g. through NFS). This helps minimize network traffic, although it does not guarantee faster access

to data over the network. FS-Cache allows a file system on a server to interact directly with a client's

local cache without creating an over mounted file system.

I/O Limit Processing

The Linux I/O stack can now process I/O limit information for devices that provide it. This allows

storage management tools to better optimize I/O for some devices.

ext4 Support

The ext4 file system is fully supported in this release. It is now the default file system of Red Hat

Enterprise Linux 6, supporting an unlimited number of subdirectories. It also features more granular

timestamping, extended attributes support, and quota journaling.

Network Block Storage

Fibre-channel over ethernet is now supported. This allows a fibre-channel interface to use 10-Gigabit

ethernet networks while preserving the fibre-channel protocol