Red Hat Edge Manager manages different aspects of a device depending on whether the device runs in image mode or package mode. Understanding which capabilities apply to each mode helps you set operational expectations and plan complementary tooling for tasks outside Red Hat Edge Manager scope.

The following table compares Red Hat Edge Manager management capabilities by operating system (OS) mode:

Agent behavior on package-mode devices

On package-mode devices, the agent skips OS update reconciliation entirely. The agent detects that the host does not use image-based updates and skips OS image staging, bootc invocation, and rollback checks entirely. No error-level log messages are generated from the absence of image-mode tooling; the agent operates as though OS update steps do not exist.

If the delivered spec includes a spec.os.image field, the agent rejects the entire spec. No configuration overlays or application workloads from that spec version are applied; the device stays on its previously committed spec. Configuration and applications apply normally only when the delivered spec has no OS image target.

For more information about how the agent handles OS image fields on package-mode devices, see Additional resources.

OS identity on package-mode devices

Package-mode devices report their operating system identity through status.systemInfo fields such as distroName and distroVersion. The status.os.image field is empty on package-mode devices because no bootable container image is associated with the running OS.

For a known package-mode device, a direct device edit that sets or changes spec.os.image is rejected by both the Flight Control web console and the API (HTTP 400). Fleet delivery of an OS image in the template is still allowed; the agent then rejects the full delivered spec as described above.

For more information about console and agent-side handling, see Additional resources.