A container image needs a filesystem and any runtime libraries its application depends on, even when it does not need a full operating-system installation. The historical rhel7-atomic image supplied a minimal Red Hat-based starting point for building application containers. This entry concerns that image, not the operating system installed on cluster workers. For a replacement, evaluate a supported Universal Base Image and rebuild the application, checking its libraries, certificates and startup assumptions against the selected variant.
Current guidance
The recovered link points to the rhel7-atomic container image. Red Hat’s documentation identifies that as a legacy minimal base image and recommends Universal Base Images for newer container work. It should not be confused with installing or upgrading RHEL Atomic Host on Kubernetes nodes; this resource concerns the filesystem and packages inside an application image.
Select a current UBI major version and standard, minimal or runtime variant according to the application’s ABI, package and support requirements. Redistribution and subscription/support terms are separate questions; the original claim that paid RHEL is the only route to useful vulnerability information is not a current selection rule. Rebuild against the chosen base rather than layering newer packages onto an unspecified old tag.
Test native libraries, certificate stores, locale/timezone behavior, non-root execution and startup scripts. Minimal variants may omit shell utilities or package-management behavior used by the old image. Record the resulting digest and update process, then compare application responses before rollout. Changing the FROM line does not by itself prove compatibility or establish coverage for every bundled dependency.
Historical upstream link check · 2026-10-09
The recorded upstream address redirects to https://catalog.redhat.com/en?tab=images and returned HTTP 200 on 2026-10-09. Link availability does not certify the historical installation instructions or current security support.
Website availability is separate from project, chart and image support. Use the current guidance and primary sources on this page to assess the distribution.
Historical Kubedex content
Original publication: 2018-10-13T15:37:51+00:00. Preserved for context. Commands, versions, prices and results below reflect the original research.
Fedora and Centos don’t come with access to a CVE database. This leaves RHEL which requires a paid subscription to use.
If you have a paid subscription and are already going down the RHEL -> OpenShift -> Project Atomic route anyway then this is a good container to use. RHEL Atomic is 31mb compressed and 78.4mb on disk.
For those wanting to create a small Centos base image and don’t mind the lack of a CVE database you can use Buildah to create a minimal Centos 7 image that’s just 23mb compressed.
For those without a RHEL subscription I’d avoid Redhat base images entirely. Both Ubuntu and Debian now provide minimal base images that are small and come with a CVE database that ensures you can scan for vulnerabilities and get regular security patches.
Read our comparison blog to see how Redhat compares to the others.
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