Alma Linux Not Being Considered Part of RHEL Family?

[ring-pete]

Description of problem:

I run a fleet of Alma Linux 9 EC2 instances on AWS. As part of our hardening process we apply this playbook almalinux9-playbook-cis_server_l1.yml when creating gold AMI images. With recent updates to Alma (version 9.8) this playbook began failing trying to detect a cron package:

fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failures": ["No package cron available."], "msg": "Failed to install some of the specified packages", "rc": 1, "results": []}

If I modify the playbook to refer to the cronie package it works as expected:

--- /usr/share/scap-security-guide/ansible/almalinux9-playbook-cis_server_l1.yml        2026-08-13 09:29:58.165376965 -0700
+++ /tmp/almalinux9-playbook-cis_server_l1.yml  2026-08-13 09:29:51.501275061 -0700
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@
 
   - name: Configure Periodic Execution of AIDE - Install cron
     ansible.builtin.package:
-      name: cron
+      name: cronie
       state: present
     when: '"kernel" in ansible_facts.packages'
     tags:

I did some searching on my end and I saw this recent issue that seems related, and I wonder if Alma should be included as part of the rhel family. Although maybe it's treated separately and there is something else that needs to be updated to reflect this change.

#14889

SCAP Security Guide Version:

scap-security-guide-0.1.81-1.el9_8.alma.1.noarch

Operating System Version:

$ cat /etc/redhat-release 
AlmaLinux release 9.8 (Olive Jaguar)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Boot Alma Linux 9 AMI
2. Ensure scap-security-guide is installed
3. Run ansible playbook for almalinux9-playbook-cis_server_l1.yml
4. Observe error

Actual Results:

Ansible errors with this error:

fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failures": ["No package cron available."], "msg": "Failed to install some of the specified packages", "rc": 1, "results": []}

Expected Results:

Playbook detects cronie as being the appropriate cron package

Additional Information/Debugging Steps:

[Mab879]

Looks at AlmaLinux 9's product.yml there are no families defined for it.

We might want to add something like what OL9 has

content/products/ol9/product.yml

Lines 5 to 6 in 371e25d

	families:
	- rhel-like

[ring-pete]

Looks at AlmaLinux 9's product.yml there are no families defined for it.

We might want to add something like what OL9 has

content/products/ol9/product.yml

Lines 5 to 6 in 371e25d

	families:
	- rhel-like

I'm not sure familiar with the codebase tbh, but i'm happy to make a branch with this change and try building/testing if that will be helpful (might need to ask for help in that process though 🙂 )

[Mab879]

Feel free to open a PR, happy to help review.