Step 1 – Install Required Dependencies

The latest version of Python is not included in the Oracle Linux 8 default repo, so you will need to compile it from the source.

To compile Python from the source, you will need to install some dependencies on your system. You can install all of them by running the following command:

dnf install curl gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel zlib-devel sqlite-devel wget make -y

Once all the dependencies are installed, you can proceed to the next step.

Step 2 – Install Python 3.10.4 on Oracle Linux 8

Next, visit the Python official download page and download the latest version of Python using the following command:

wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.10.8/Python-3.10.8.tgz

Once the download is completed, extract the downloaded file using the following command:

tar xzf Python-3.10.8.tgz

Next, change the directory to the extracted directory and configure Python using the following command:

cd Python-3.10.8
sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations --with-system-ffi --with-computed-gotos

Next, start the build process using the following command:

sudo make -j ${nproc}

Finally, install Python 3.10 by running the following command:

sudo make altinstall

After the successful installation, verify the Python installation using the following command:

python3.10 --version

You will get the following output:

Python 3.10.8

Step 3 – Create a Virtual Environment in Python

Python provides a venv module that helps developers to create a virtual environment and deploy applications easily in an isolated environment.

To create a virtual environment named python-env, run the following command:

python3.10 -m venv python-env

Next, activate the virtual environment using the following command:

source python-env/bin/activate

You will get the following shell:

(python-env) [root@oraclelinux8 ~]#

Now, you can use the PIP package manager to install any package and dependencies inside your virtual environment.

For example, run the following command to install apache-airflow:

pip3.10 install apache-airflow

If you want to remove this package, run the command below:

pip3.10 uninstall apache-airflow

To exit from the Python virtual environment, run the following command:

deactivate

Conclusion

In this guide, we explained how to install Python 3.10.8 on Oracle Linux 8. You can now install Python in the development environment and start developing your first application using the Python programming language.

Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (AES-NI) is a special instruction set for x86 processors, which is designed to accelerate the execution of AES algorithms. AES-based symmetric encryption is widely used in a variety of security applications and protocol implementations (e.g., IPSec, SSL/TLS, HTTPS, SSH). OpenSSL crypto library supports AES-based ciphers as well.

To support available hardware extensions, OpenSSL provides so-called EVP crypto APIs (e.g., EVP_Decrypt/EVP_Encrypt) which can automatically leverage hardware acceleration like AES-NI (if available) and fall back to software implementation (if not available), via a single interface. If you want to check whether currently installed OpenSSL supports AES-NI hardware acceleration, you can test using OpenSSL’s EVP APIs.

Check if AES-NI is Available on CPU Processors

Before proceeding, first verify that current CPUs have the AES instruction set. For this you can inspect CPU flags as follows.

$ grep -m1 -o aes /proc/cpuinfo
aes

If the output shows aes, that means AES-NI engine is available on current CPUs.

Check if AES-NI is Enabled for OpenSSL

To check whether OpenSSL can leverage AES instruction sets, you can use OpenSSL’s EVP APIs. When EVP APIs are called, they can automatically detect the presence of AES-NI and accelerate AES encryption computations using AES instruction sets. Thus you can compare AES performance with or without EVP functions. If AES-NI is available for OpenSSL, you will see significant performance boost when EVP functions are used.

Let’s use OpenSSL’s built-in speed test.

To measure AES algorithm speed without AES-NI acceleration:

$ openssl speed -elapsed aes-128-cbc

To measure AES algorithm speed with AES-NI acceleration (via EVP APIs):

$ openssl speed -elapsed -evp aes-128-cbc

The above two example outputs show encryption rates for different block sizes. You can see that AES speed with AES-NI acceleration is about five times higher than non-acceleration. This confirms that AES-NI is enabled for OpenSSL. If OpenSSL cannot leverage AES-NI for any reason, two outputs would show the same performance.