| Azure Linux | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Written in | Go,Shell script,C,Roff,Python |
| OS family | Linux |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | April 1, 2020; 5 years ago (2020-04-01) (asCBL-Mariner) |
| Latest release | 3.0.20251206 / December 15, 2025; 2 months ago (2025-12-15)[1] |
| Repository | github |
| Marketing target | Cloud infrastructure and edge products and services |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux kernel) |
| License | PrimarilyMIT License, with some components underApache License v2,GPLv2, andLGPLv2.1[2] |
| Official website | github |
Azure Linux (previouslyCBL-Mariner),[3] is afree and open-sourceLinux distribution developed byMicrosoft. It is the basecontainer OS forMicrosoft Azure services[4][5] and the graphical component ofWSL 2.[6]
Azure Linux is being developed by theLinux Systems Group at Microsoft for its edge network services and as part of itscloud infrastructure.[5] The company uses it as the base Linux for containers in theAzure StackHCI implementation of AzureKubernetes Service.[4] Microsoft also uses Azure Linux in Azure IoT Edge to run Linux workloads onWindows IoT, and as a backend distro to host theWeston compositor forWSLg.[7]
In a similar approach toFedora CoreOS, Azure Linux only has the basic packages needed to support and run containers. Common Linux tools are used to add packages and managesecurity updates. Updates are offered either asRPMpackages or as completedisk images that can be deployed as needed. Using RPM allows adding custom packages to a base Azure Linux image to support additional features and services as needed. Notable features include aniptables-basedfirewall, support forsigned updates, and ahardenedkernel.[5]
Microsoft released the operating system in 2020.[5] Itssource code is available on GitHub, mainly under theMIT License, with some components underApache License v2,GPLv2, andLGPLv2.1.[2] Building Azure Linux requires theGoprogramming language,QEMU utilities, andRPM.[5]
Starting from the release 2.0.20240301, Azure Linux was renamed fromCBL-Mariner (Common Base Linux Mariner).[8]
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