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Chapter 9. Troubleshooting

The in-place upgrade is a complex process, and it is common to encounter issues and roadblocks. Refer to the following troubleshooting resources and tips for help on resolving these issues.

9.1. Troubleshooting resources
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You can use various troubleshooting resources can help you diagnose and troubleshoot issues you encounter throughout the upgrade process.

Console output

By default, only error and critical log level messages are printed to the console output by the Leapp utility. To change the log level, use the --verbose or --debug options with the leapp upgrade command.

  • In verbose mode, Leapp prints info, warning, error, and critical messages.
  • In debug mode, Leapp prints debug, info, warning, error, and critical messages.

Logs

  • The /var/log/leapp/leapp-upgrade.log file lists issues found during the initramfs phase.
  • The /var/log/leapp/dnf-debugdata/ directory contains transaction debug data. This directory is present only if the leapp upgrade command is executed with the --debug option.
  • The /var/log/leapp/answerfile contains questions required to be answered by Leapp.
  • The journalctl utility provides complete logs.

Reports

9.2. Troubleshooting tips
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When diagnosing and troubleshooting issues that occur during the in-place upgrade process, make sure to check for these frequently skipped steps and use these helpful resources.

Pre-upgrade phase

  • Verify that your system meets all conditions listed in Planning an upgrade.
  • Make sure you have followed all steps described in Preparing for the upgrade, for example, your system does not use more than one Network Interface Card (NIC) with a name based on the prefix used by the kernel (eth).

  • Make sure you have answered all questions required by Leapp in the /var/log/leapp/answerfile file. If any answers are missing, Leapp inhibits the upgrade. For example:

    • Are there no VDO devices on the system?
  • Make sure you have resolved all problems identified in the pre-upgrade report, located at /var/log/leapp/leapp-report.txt. To achieve this, you can also use the web console, as described in Assessing upgradability and applying automated remediations through the web console.

Example 9.1. Leapp answerfile

The following is an example of an unedited /var/log/leapp/answerfile file that has one unanswered question: 

[check_vdo]
# Title:              None
# Reason:             Confirmation
# ============================= check_vdo.confirm =============================
# Label:              Are all VDO devices, if any, successfully converted to LVM management?
# Description:        Enter True if no VDO devices are present on the system or all VDO devices on the system have been successfully converted to LVM management. Entering True will circumvent check of failures and undetermined devices. Recognized VDO devices that have not been converted to LVM management can still block the upgrade despite the answer.All VDO devices must be converted to LVM management before upgrading.
# Reason:             To maximize safety all block devices on a system that meet the criteria as possible VDO devices are checked to verify that, if VDOs, they have been converted to LVM management. If the devices are not converted and the upgrade proceeds the data on unconverted VDO devices will be inaccessible. In order to perform checking the 'vdo' package must be installed. If the 'vdo' package is not installed and there are any doubts the 'vdo' package should be installed and the upgrade process re-run to check for unconverted VDO devices. If the check of any device fails for any reason an upgrade inhibiting report is generated. This may be problematic if devices are dynamically removed from the system subsequent to having been identified during device discovery. If it is certain that all VDO devices have been successfully converted to LVM management this dialog may be answered in the affirmative which will circumvent block device checking.
# Type:               bool
# Default:            None
# Available choices: True/False
# Unanswered question. Uncomment the following line with your answer
# confirm =
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

The Label field specifies the question that requires an answer. In this example, the question is Are all VDO devices, if any, successfully converted to LVM management?

To answer the question, uncomment the last line and enter an answer of True or False. In this example, the selected answer is True: 

[check_vdo]
...
# Available choices: True/False
# Unanswered question. Uncomment the following line with your answer
confirm = True
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Download phase

  • If a problem occurs during downloading RPM packages, examine transaction debug data located in the /var/log/leapp/dnf-debugdata/ directory.

    Note

    The /var/log/leapp/dnf-debugdata/ directory is empty or does not exist if no transaction debug data was produced. This might occur when the required repositories are not available.

Initramfs phase

  • During this phase, potential failures redirect you to the Dracut shell. Check the Journal log: 

    # journalctl
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Alternatively, restart the system from the Dracut shell using the reboot command and check the /var/log/leapp/leapp-upgrade.log file.

Post-upgrade phase

  • If your system seems to be successfully upgraded but booted with the old RHEL 9 kernel, restart the system and check the kernel version of the default entry in GRUB.
  • Make sure you have followed the recommended steps in Verifying the post-upgrade state.

  • If your application or a service stops working or behaves incorrectly after you have switched SELinux to enforcing mode, search for denials using the ausearch, journalctl, or dmesg utilities: 

    # ausearch -m AVC,USER_AVC -ts boot
# journalctl -t setroubleshoot
# dmesg | grep -i -e selinux -e type=1400
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The most common problems are caused by incorrect labeling. See Troubleshooting problems related to SELinux for more details.

There are a variety of known issues that you might encounter when upgrading from RHEL 9.7 to RHEL 10.1.

  • If your RHEL 9 system uses a device driver that is provided by Red Hat but is not available in RHEL 10, Leapp inhibits the upgrade. However, if the RHEL 9 system uses a third-party device driver that Leapp does not have data for in the /etc/leapp/files/device_driver_deprecation_data.json file, Leapp does not detect such a driver and proceeds with the upgrade. Consequently, the system might fail to boot after the upgrade.

  • If the name of a third-party package, not signed by Red Hat, installed on your system is the same as the name of a package provided by Red Hat, the in-place upgrade fails. To work around this problem, choose one of the following options prior to upgrading:

    1. Remove the third-party package
    2. Replace the third-party package with the package provided by Red Hat
  • The in-place upgrade might fail on systems with Software Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID). (BZ#1957192)

  • During the in-place upgrade, the Leapp utility usually preserves the network interface controller (NIC) names between RHEL 9 and RHEL 10. However, on some systems, such as systems with network bonding, the NIC names might need to be updated between RHEL 9 and RHEL 10. On those systems, perform the following steps:

    1. Set the LEAPP_NO_NETWORK_RENAMING=1 environment variable to prevent the Leapp utility from incorrectly preserving the original RHEL 9 NIC names.
    2. Perform the in-place upgrade.

    3. Verify that your network is working correctly. If needed, manually update the network configuration.

      (BZ#1919382)

  • If any of the mounted file systems that are defined in the /etc/fstab file do not have the shared propagation flag set, the upgrade might fail. To prevent this issue, remount these file systems to set them as shared: 

    # mount -o remount --make-shared <mountpoint>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Replace mountpoint with the mountpoint of each file system.

    For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution Leapp "Can not load RPM file" during the DNF transaction check. (RHEL-23449)

  • If you use an HTTP proxy, you must configure Red Hat Subscription Manager (RHSM) to use such a proxy, or you must execute the subscription-manager command with the --proxy <hostname> option. Otherwise, an execution of the subscription-manager command fails. If you use the --proxy option instead of the configuration change, the upgrade process fails because Leapp is unable to detect the proxy. To prevent this problem from occurring, manually edit the rhsm.conf file. For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution How to configure HTTP Proxy for Red Hat Subscription Management. (BZ#1689294)
  • For systems that require a proxy to access RHEL 9 content, you usually need to configure the use of the proxy by DNF in the /etc/dnf/dnf.conf configuration file. If the current DNF configuration is not compatible with the DNF version on the target system, specify the valid target configuration in the /etc/leapp/files/dnf.conf configuration file. For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution How does Leapp work with a proxy?
  • The kerberos client might break after the upgrade if it is configured to use the deprecated /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt file for root certificates. To fix the configuration, use the /etc/pki/ca-trust/extracted/pem/tls-ca-bundle.pem file instead. (RHEL-65265)
  • On IBM Z machines, the upgrade might fail if the system is on multipath LVM SCSI LUNs. (RHEL-76159)
  • The upgrade might fail if you are upgrading by using Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) with an ISO image. You can work around this issue by not using the --iso option with the upgrade or see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution Offline Leapp upgrade using ISO fails with "Failed to synchronize cache for repo 'rhul-microsoft-azure-rhel8', ignoring this repo. (RHEL-3296)
  • If you are upgrading by using Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI), files in the /usr/share/leapp-repository/repositories/system_upgrade/common/files/rhui/ directory are incorrectly reported as custom files in the pre-upgrade report. Unless you modified these files manually, you can ignore the warnings about these files in the report and the in-place upgrade will not be affected. (RHEL-40115)
  • When upgrading systems by using Red Hat Upgrade Infrastructure (RHUI), the upgrade could fail if the RHUI setup of the system differs from defaults implemented in the in-place upgrade solution RHUI systems expected by the Leapp utility. To resolve this problem, configure the upgrade process to adjust it for your RHUI setup. For more information, see Using RHUI to configure an in-place upgrade.

There are a variety of known issues that you might encounter when upgrading from RHEL 9.6 to RHEL 10.1.

  • If your RHEL 9 system uses a device driver that is provided by Red Hat but is not available in RHEL 10, Leapp inhibits the upgrade. However, if the RHEL 9 system uses a third-party device driver that Leapp does not have data for in the /etc/leapp/files/device_driver_deprecation_data.json file, Leapp does not detect such a driver and proceeds with the upgrade. Consequently, the system might fail to boot after the upgrade.

  • If the name of a third-party package, not signed by Red Hat, installed on your system is the same as the name of a package provided by Red Hat, the in-place upgrade fails. To work around this problem, choose one of the following options prior to upgrading:

    1. Remove the third-party package
    2. Replace the third-party package with the package provided by Red Hat
  • The in-place upgrade might fail on systems with Software Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID). (BZ#1957192)

  • During the in-place upgrade, the Leapp utility usually preserves the network interface controller (NIC) names between RHEL 9 and RHEL 10. However, on some systems, such as systems with network bonding, the NIC names might need to be updated between RHEL 9 and RHEL 10. On those systems, perform the following steps:

    1. Set the LEAPP_NO_NETWORK_RENAMING=1 environment variable to prevent the Leapp utility from incorrectly preserving the original RHEL 9 NIC names.
    2. Perform the in-place upgrade.

    3. Verify that your network is working correctly. If needed, manually update the network configuration.

      (BZ#1919382)

  • If any of the mounted file systems that are defined in the /etc/fstab file do not have the shared propagation flag set, the upgrade might fail. To prevent this issue, remount these file systems to set them as shared: 

    # mount -o remount --make-shared <mountpoint>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Replace mountpoint with the mountpoint of each file system.

    For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution Leapp "Can not load RPM file" during the DNF transaction check. (RHEL-23449)

  • If you use an HTTP proxy, Red Hat Subscription Manager must be configured to use such a proxy, or the subscription-manager command must be executed with the --proxy <hostname> option. Otherwise, an execution of the subscription-manager command fails. If you use the --proxy option instead of the configuration change, the upgrade process fails because Leapp is unable to detect the proxy. To prevent this problem from occurring, manually edit the rhsm.conf file. For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution How to configure HTTP Proxy for Red Hat Subscription Management. (BZ#1689294)
  • For systems that require a proxy to access RHEL 9 content, you usually need to configure the use of the proxy by DNF in the /etc/dnf/dnf.conf configuration file. If the current DNF configuration is not compatible with the DNF version on the target system, specify the valid target configuration in the /etc/leapp/files/dnf.conf configuration file. For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution How does Leapp work with a proxy?
  • The kerberos client might break after the upgrade if it is configured to use the deprecated /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt file for root certificates. To fix the configuration, use the /etc/pki/ca-trust/extracted/pem/tls-ca-bundle.pem file instead. (RHEL-65265)
  • On IBM Z machines, the upgrade might fail if the system is on multipath LVM SCSI LUNs. (RHEL-76159)

  • If dracut is configured to include the deprecated network-legacy module, the system does not boot after the upgrade. This issue often occurs on systems that have been in-place upgraded to RHEL 9. To prevent this problem, perform the following actions:

    1. Remove the network-legacy module from the dracut configuration.
    2. Rebuild existing initramfs images.

    3. Reboot the system before you start the upgrade.

      For more information see the leapp upgrade fails to boot after upgrading to RHEL 10.0 Knowledgebase solution.

      (RHEL-102591)

9.5. Obtaining support
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To open a support case, select RHEL 9 as the product, and provide a sosreport from your system.

  • To generate a sosreport on your system, run: 
# sosreport
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Note that you can leave the case ID empty.

For more information about generating a sosreport, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution What is an sosreport and how to create one in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?.

For more information about opening and managing a support case on the Customer Portal, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution, How do I open and manage a support case on the Customer Portal?.

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