Red Hat has submitted its upcoming release of Enterprise Linux for the Defense Department's Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme, seeking a government imprimatur that could strengthen the company's hold on the federal market.

IBM and Trusted Computer Solutions, two longtime Red Hat partners, are also involved. During the evaluation, the operating system will run on IBM servers using a variety of processors, and TCS has already released software that incorporates the enhancements to Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 5.

The operating system includes the Linux kernel and Security-Enhanced Linux, a version developed by the National Security Agency along with several companies and individuals in the Linux community.

The Common Criteria evaluation covers three protection profiles related to controlling access to information. A successful evaluation will mean that the operating system meets government security standards for assured information sharing within and across government agencies.

Red Hat announced in October 2004 that it was developing a trusted Linux in partnership with TCS. The designation applies to systems that have met certain standards and specifications. The Common Criteria certification at Evaluation Assurance Level 4 is part of that process.

Paul Smith, Red Hat's vice president of government sales operations, said the company is not planning a separate version of Linux — the security features will be a standard part of the next release.

"There have been a couple of runs at trusted operating systems in the past, but the difference between what's out there now and what we're announcing is that, in the Linux world, we'll have trusted capabilities in a standard distribution," he said. "It comes out of the box, the features are there, the [independent software vendor] support is there, and it runs on standard hardware and chip architectures."

The company is still in the early stages of the evaluation process, but Smith said he has no doubt the company will succeed.

"Common Criteria in government is one of the Holy Grails," he said. "It's a watermark for acceptance, so it's not something we take lightly. It's absolutely mandatory for us to have."