Chapter 1. Introduction to Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)

The Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) provides guidelines and requirements for improving security and interoperability across computer systems and networks. The FIPS 140-2 and 140-3 series apply to cryptographic modules at both the hardware and software levels. The National Institute of Standards and Technology in the United States implements a cryptographic module validation program with searchable lists of both in-process and approved cryptographic modules.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) brings an integrated framework to enable FIPS 140 compliance system-wide. When operating under FIPS mode, software packages using cryptographic libraries are self-configured according to the global policy. Most of the packages provide a way to change the default alignment behavior for compatibility or other needs.

Red Hat build of OpenJDK 17 is a FIPS policy-aware package.