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OpenShift Container Platform update life cycle

Overview

Red Hat provides a published product life cycle for OpenShift Container Platform in order for customers and partners to effectively plan, deploy, and support their applications running on the platform. Red Hat publishes this life cycle to provide as much transparency as possible and might make exceptions from these policies as conflicts arise.

OpenShift Container Platform is a managed deployment of Red Hat OpenShift and maintains an independent release schedule. More details about the managed offering can be found in the OpenShift Container Platform service definition. The availability of Security Advisories and Bug Fix Advisories for a specific version are dependent upon the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform life cycle policy and subject to the OpenShift Container Platform maintenance schedule.

Additional resources

Definitions

The following table defines the versioning scheme used for OpenShift Container Platform releases.

Table 1. Version reference
Version format Major Minor Patch Major.minor.patch

x

y

z

x.y.z

Example

4

5

21

4.5.21
Major releases or X-releases

Referred to only as major releases or X-releases (X.y.z).

Examples

  • "Major release 5" → 5.y.z

  • "Major release 4" → 4.y.z

  • "Major release 3" → 3.y.z

Minor releases or Y-releases

Referred to only as minor releases or Y-releases (x.Y.z).

Examples

  • "Minor release 4" → 4.4.z

  • "Minor release 5" → 4.5.z

  • "Minor release 6" → 4.6.z

Patch releases or Z-releases

Referred to only as patch releases or Z-releases (x.y.Z).

Examples

  • "Patch release 14 of minor release 5" → 4.5.14

  • "Patch release 25 of minor release 5" → 4.5.25

  • "Patch release 26 of minor release 6" → 4.6.26

Major versions (X.y.z)

Major versions of OpenShift Container Platform, for example version 4, are supported for one year following the release of a subsequent major version or the retirement of the product.

Example

  • If version 5 were made available on OpenShift Container Platform on January 1, version 4 would be allowed to continue running on managed clusters for 12 months, until December 31. After this time, clusters would need to be upgraded or migrated to version 5.

Minor versions (x.Y.z)

Starting with the 4.8 OpenShift Container Platform minor version, Red Hat supports all minor versions for at least a 16 month period following general availability of the given minor version. Patch versions are not affected by the support period.

Customers are notified 60, 30, and 15 days before the end of the support period. Clusters must be upgraded to the latest patch version of the oldest supported minor version before the end of the support period, or the cluster will enter a "Limited Support" status.

Example

  1. A customer’s cluster is currently running on 4.13.8. The 4.13 minor version became generally available on May 17, 2023.

  2. On July 19, August 16, and September 2, 2024, the customer is notified that their cluster will enter "Limited Support" status on September 17, 2024 if the cluster has not already been upgraded to a supported minor version.

  3. The cluster must be upgraded to 4.14 or later by September 17, 2024.

  4. If the upgrade has not been performed, the cluster will be flagged as being in a "Limited Support" status.

Additional resources

Patch versions (x.y.Z)

During the period in which a minor version is supported, Red Hat supports all OpenShift Container Platform patch versions unless otherwise specified.

For reasons of platform security and stability, a patch release may be deprecated, which would prevent installations of that release and trigger mandatory upgrades off that release.

Example

  1. 4.7.6 is found to contain a critical CVE.

  2. Any releases impacted by the CVE will be removed from the supported patch release list. In addition, any clusters running 4.7.6 will be scheduled for automatic upgrades within 48 hours.

Limited support status

When a cluster transitions to a Limited Support status, Red Hat no longer proactively monitors the cluster, the SLA is no longer applicable, and credits requested against the SLA are denied. It does not mean that you no longer have product support. In some cases, the cluster can return to a fully-supported status if you remediate the violating factors. However, in other cases, you might have to delete and recreate the cluster.

A cluster might transition to a Limited Support status for many reasons, including the following scenarios:

If you do not upgrade a cluster to a supported version before the end-of-life date

Red Hat does not make any runtime or SLA guarantees for versions after their end-of-life date. To receive continued support, upgrade the cluster to a supported version before the end-of-life date. If you do not upgrade the cluster before the end-of-life date, the cluster transitions to a Limited Support status until it is upgraded to a supported version.

Red Hat provides commercially reasonable support to upgrade from an unsupported version to a supported version. However, if a supported upgrade path is no longer available, you might have to create a new cluster and migrate your workloads.

If you remove or replace any native OpenShift Container Platform components or any other component that is installed and managed by Red Hat

If cluster administrator permissions were used, Red Hat is not responsible for any of your or your authorized users’ actions, including those that affect infrastructure services, service availability, or data loss. If Red Hat detects any such actions, the cluster might transition to a Limited Support status. Red Hat notifies you of the status change and you should either revert the action or create a support case to explore remediation steps that might require you to delete and recreate the cluster.

If you have questions about a specific action that might cause a cluster to transition to a Limited Support status or need further assistance, open a support ticket.

Supported versions exception policy

Red Hat reserves the right to add or remove new or existing versions, or delay upcoming minor release versions, that have been identified to have one or more critical production impacting bugs or security issues without advance notice.

Installation policy

While Red Hat recommends installation of the latest support release, OpenShift Container Platform supports installation of any supported release as covered by the preceding policy.

Mandatory upgrades

If a critical or important CVE, or other bug identified by Red Hat, significantly impacts the security or stability of the cluster, the customer must upgrade to the next supported patch release within two business days.

In extreme circumstances and based on Red Hat’s assessment of the CVE criticality to the environment, Red Hat will notify customers that they have two business days to schedule or manually update their cluster to the latest, secure patch release. In the case that an update is not performed after two business days, Red Hat will automatically update the cluster to the latest, secure patch release to mitigate potential security breach(es) or instability. Red Hat might, at its own discretion, temporarily delay an automated update if requested by a customer through a support case.

Life cycle dates

The following table lists the general availability, maintenance support end date, and Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 end date for each supported OpenShift Container Platform version.

Version General availability Maintenance support ends Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 ends

4.21

Feb 4, 2026

Aug 3, 2027

4.20

Oct 21, 2025

Apr 21, 2027

Oct 21, 2027

4.19

Jun 17, 2025

Dec 17, 2026

4.18

Feb 25, 2025

Aug 25, 2026

Feb 25, 2027

4.17

Oct 1, 2024

Apr 1, 2026

4.16

Jun 27, 2024

Dec 27, 2025

Jun 27, 2026

4.15

Feb 27, 2024

Aug 27, 2025

The Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 is now available for OpenShift Container Platform customers using even-numbered versions, starting with 4.16, and is included at no additional cost with your OpenShift Container Platform subscription.

The Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 provides the key benefit of extending the support lifecycle for an eligible minor release from 18 months to a total of 24 months. This 6-month extension allows organizations to maintain stability for mission-critical applications, meet complex regulatory validation schedules, and manage limited maintenance windows by providing continued access to critical and important security updates and urgent-priority bug fixes without requiring a full version upgrade.

To apply Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 to your OpenShift Container Platform cluster, you must update the channel group to eus. For more information about Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1, see Extended Update Support Add-On.

Additional resources