Chapter 4. New features

Support to both legacy and UEFI boot for AWS EC2 images

Previously, RHEL image builder created EC2 AMD or Intel 64-bit architecture AMIs images with support only for the legacy boot type. As a consequence, it was not possible to take advantage of certain AWS features requiring UEFI boot, such as secure boot. This enhancement extends the AWS EC2 AMD or Intel 64-bit architecture AMI image to support UEFI boot, in addition to the legacy BIOS boot. As a result, it is now possible to take advantage of AWS features which require booting the image with UEFI.

New boot option inst.wait_for_disks= to add wait time for loading a Kickstart file or the kernel drivers

Sometimes, it may take a few seconds to load a Kickstart file or the kernel drivers from the device with the OEMDRV label during the boot process. To adjust the wait time, you can now use the new boot option, inst.wait_for_disks=. Using this option, you can specify how many seconds to wait before the installation. The default time is set to 5 seconds, however, you can use 0 seconds to minimize the delay. For more information about this option, see Storage boot options.

Ability to select required kernel while installing RHEL on ARM using GUI and TUI

Previously, you could install RHEL on ARM with kernel-64k page size only by using the Kickstart method. With this update, you can now install RHEL on ARM using the GUI or the TUI and selecting the required kernel version. The option to select the required kernel is available on the Software Selection screen under Kernel Options.

Support for VMware VSphere (OVA)

This update adds support to build VMware VSphere OVA files by using RHEL image builder. The Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) file is a virtual appliance used by the VMware VSphere virtualization application. The OVA file contains files used to describe a virtual machine, such as an OVF descriptor file, one or more virtual machine disk image files (VMDK), optional manifest (MF) and certificate files. By using the VMware VSphere (.ova), you can more easily deploy the image to VMware vSphere by using the vSphere GUI client. You can further customize the resulting VM before you boot the image.

New network Kickstart options to control DNS handling

You can now control DNS handling using the network Kickstart command with the following new options. Use these new options with the --device option.

Minimal RHEL installation now installs only the s390utils-core package

In RHEL 8.4 and later, the s390utils-base package is split into an s390utils-core package and an auxiliary s390utils-base package. As a result, setting the RHEL installation to minimal-environment installs only the necessary s390utils-core package and not the auxiliary s390utils-base package. If you want to use the s390utils-base package with a minimal RHEL installation, you must manually install the package after completing the RHEL installation or explicitly install s390utils-base using a Kickstart file.

Keylime rebased to version 7.3.0

The Keylime packages have been updated to upstream version 7.3.0. This version provides various enhancements and bug fixes. Most notably, the allow and exclude lists are combined into the Keylime runtime policy. You can combine the two lists by using the convert_runtime_policy.py script.

Ports for Keylime have stricter rules in SELinux policy

Ports used by Keylime are now labeled as keylime_port_t in the Keylime SELinux policy. The policy now allows TCP connections for ports with this label. This is because the previous Keylime SELinux policy allowed connecting to all undefined ports and also most of the ports used by Keylime were in the undefined group. As a result, this update increases the granularity of the Keylime SELinux policy, and port security can be more strict and better targeted.

Audit now supports FANOTIFY record fields

This update of the audit packages introduces support for FANOTIFY Audit record fields. The Audit subsystem now logs additional information in the AUDIT_FANOTIFY record, notably:

fapolicyd now provides rule numbers for troubleshooting

With this enhancement, new kernel and Audit components allow the fapolicyd service to send the number of the rule that causes a denial to the fanotify API. As a result, you can troubleshoot problems related to fapolicyd more precisely.

crypto-policies now provides the NO-ENFORCE-EMS subpolicy for TLS 1.2 connections in FIPS mode

The system-wide cryptographic policies now contain the NO-ENFORCE-EMS subpolicy. After applying the new subpolicy, the system no longer requires the Extended Master Secret (EMS) extension (RFC 7627) for all TLS 1.2 connections negotiated in FIPS mode. This allows the system to connect to legacy systems without support for EMS or TLS 1.3. Note that this violates the requirements of the FIPS-140-3 standard. You can apply the subpolicy by entering the update-crypto-policies --set FIPS:NO-ENFORCE-EMS command.

GnuTLS requires EMS with TLS 1.2 in FIPS mode

To comply with the FIPS-140-3 standard, GnuTLS servers and clients require the Extended Master Secret (EMS) extension (RFC 7627) for all TLS 1.2 connections negotiated in FIPS mode. If your scenario requires preserving compatibility with older servers and clients that do not support EMS and you cannot use TLS 1.3, you can apply the NO-ENFORCE-EMS system-wide cryptographic subpolicy:

NSS now enforce EMS in FIPS mode

The Network Security Services (NSS) libraries now contain the TLS-REQUIRE-EMS policy to require the Extended Master Secret (EMS) extension (RFC 7627) for all TLS 1.2 connections as mandated by the FIPS 140-3 standard. NSS use the new policy when the system-wide cryptographic policies are set to FIPS.

OpenSSL now supports disabling EMS in FIPS mode

You can now configure the OpenSSL cryptographic libraries to allow for TLS 1.2 connections without the Extended Master Secret (EMS) extension (RFC 7627) in FIPS mode by editing the /etc/pki/tls/fips_local.cnf file. In a text editor of your choice, add the following section to the configuration file:

OpenSSH further enforces SHA-2

As part of the effort to migrate further from the less secure SHA-1 message digest for cryptographic purposes, the following changes were made in OpenSSH:

OpenSSL now contains protections against Bleichenbacher-like attacks

This release of the OpenSSL TLS toolkit introduces API-level protections against Bleichenbacher-like attacks on the RSA PKCS #1 v1.5 decryption process. The RSA decryption now returns a randomly generated deterministic message instead of an error if it detects an error when checking padding during a PKCS #1 v1.5 decryption. The change provides general protection against vulnerabilities such as CVE-2020-25659 and CVE-2020-25657.

OpenSSL now supports Brainpool curves configurable through the Groups option

This update of the OpenSSL TLS toolkit introduces support for Brainpool curves in Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). Additionally, you can control the curves with the system-wide cryptographic policies through the Groups configuration option.

crypto-policies now supports OpenSSL ECC Brainpool curves

With this update of the system-wide cryptographic policies, you can now control the following Brainpool Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) curves in OpenSSL by using the group option:

crypto-policies now use the same group order as OpenSSL by default

In this release, the system-wide cryptographic policies (crypto-policies) control the group order in the OpenSSL Groups configuration option. To preserve the performance in OpenSSL, crypto-policies use the default group order that matches the order of the OpenSSL built-in preferences. As a result, the RHEL cryptographic back ends that support crypto-policies for controlling the group order, such as GnuTLS, now use the same order as OpenSSL.

crypto-policies permitted_enctypes no longer break replications in FIPS mode

Before this update, an IdM server running on RHEL 8 sent an AES-256-HMAC-SHA-1-encrypted service ticket that an IdM replica running RHEL 9 in FIPS mode. Consequently, the default permitted_enctypes krb5 configuration broke a replication between the RHEL 8 IdM server and the RHEL 9 IdM replica in FIPS mode.

pcsc-lite-ccid rebased to 1.5.2

The pcsc-lite-ccid package has been updated to version 1.5.2. This version provides various bug fixes and enhancements, most notably:

opensc rebased to 0.23

The opensc packages have been updated to version 0.23. This version provides various bug fixes and enhancements, most notably:

setools rebased to 4.4.3

The setools packages have been updated to version 4.4.3. This version provides various bug fixes and enhancements, most notably:

Additional services confined in the SELinux policy

This update adds additional rules to the SELinux policy that confine the following systemd services:

OpenSCAP rebased to 1.3.8

The OpenSCAP packages have been rebased to upstream version 1.3.8. This version provides various bug fixes and enhancements, most notably:

SCAP Security Guide rebased to version 0.1.69

The SCAP Security Guide (SSG) packages have been rebased to upstream version 0.1.69. This version provides various enhancements and bug fixes. Most notably, it introduces three new SCAP profiles for RHEL 9 aligned with the CCN-STIC-610A22 Guide issued by the National Cryptologic Center of Spain in October 2022:

ANSSI-BP-028 security profiles updated to version 2.0

The following French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) BP-028 in the SCAP Security Guide were updated to be aligned with version 2.0:

python3-greenlet-devel is now available in CRB

The python3-greenlet-devel package is now available in the CodeReady Linux Builder (CRB) repository, which you must explicitly enable. See the How to enable and make use of content within CodeReady Linux Builder Knowledgebase article for more information. Note that packages included in the CRB repository are unsupported.

SSG rule to check the group used by the pam_wheel.so module is simplified

The CIS Benchmark requires restricting the su command in favor of the sudo command. SCAP Security Guide (SSG) fulfills this requirement with the pam_wheel.so module, which restricts the su command to a specific group. This update improves the rule that checks whether this group exists and has no members. As a result, the rule is more efficient and simplifies the interpretation of the assessment report.

New FIDO Device Onboarding Servers container images are available

The following FIDO Device Onboarding Servers container images for onboarding IoT and edge computing devices are now available in the Red Hat Container Catalog:

The minimal-raw image type now supports 64-bit ARM architectures

With this enhancement, you can create a minimal-raw image type with support for 64-bit ARM architecture, and AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures. The minimal-raw image is pre-packaged, bootable, minimal RPM image, compressed in the xz format. To boot the image, you must decompress it and copy to any bootable device, such as an SD card. To decompress the image, run the following command:

The Commit ID is now supported as a value for the --parent argument of composer-cli CLI

You can now use the image Commit ID as a value for the --parent argument of the composer-cli command line. To get the image Commit ID, download and extract the RHEL for Edge Commit image. You can find the ref name and the commit ID in the extracted .tar file.

Support to build RHEL for Edge .ami images

With this enhancement, you have support to build .ami images for RHEL for Edge by using on-premise RHEL image builder. During the initial boot, you can customize the blueprint with Ignition to inject the credentials into the image. You can upload the .ami image to AWS and boot an EC2 instance in AWS.

Support to build .vmdk images for RHEL for Edge

With this enhancement, you have support to build a .vmdk image for RHEL for Edge by using on-premise RHEL image builder. You can customize the blueprint with Ignition to inject the credentials into the image during the initial boot. You can load the image on vSphere and boot the image in a VM vSphere. The image is compatible with ESXi 7.0 U2, ESXi 8.0, and later. The VM is compatible with versions 19 and 20.

You can now log in to an Edge system as the initial user without setting a password

Previously, logging in as the initial user created during the FDO onboarding process did not work because the system asked for a password that was not set with the useradd command. With this enhancement, the password is now set to optional, and you can log in even if you did not previously set a password by using the useradd command. Note that you can log in with an SSH key without entering a password, and if it fails, you will be prompted to enter a password.

New DNF Automatic reboot option for an automatic reboot after an upgrade

With this enhancement, you can use the DNF Automatic reboot option to set your system to automatically reboot to apply the changes after an upgrade.

The new --poweroff option allows you to shut down the system after installing updates

With this enhancement, the new --poweroff option has been added to the reboot command of the dnf system-upgrade plugin. You can use this option to shut down the system after installing updates instead of rebooting.

New dnf leaves and show-leaves plug-ins are now available for the DNF API

With this enhancement, the following new DNF plug-ins are available that list packages installed on your system that are not required as dependencies of other installed packages:

The NetBackup services are now enabled for backup restoration

When using the NetBackup (NBU) backup method, ReaR now includes the unit files for the NetBackup services version 10.1.1 in the rescue image and starts them when the rescue system boots. As a result, you can restore the system backup by using the NBU backup method during the recovery process and complete the restore successfully.

opencryptoki rebased to 3.21.0

The opencryptoki package has been rebased to version 3.21.0, which provides many enhancements and bug fixes. Most notably, opencryptoki now supports the following features:

Updated systemd-udevd assigns consistent network device names to InfiniBand interfaces

Introduced in RHEL 9, the new version of the systemd package contains the updated systemd-udevd device manager. The device manager changes the default names of InfiniBand interfaces to consistent names selected by systemd-udevd.

Postfix now supports SRV lookups

With this enhancement, you can now use the Postfix DNS service records resolution (SRV) to automatically configure mail clients and balance load of servers. Additionally, you can prevent mail delivery disruptions caused by temporary DNS issues or misconfigured SRV records by using the following SRV-related options in your Postfix configuration:

Generic LF-to-CRLF driver is available in cups-filters

With this enhancement, you can now use the Generic LF-to-CRLF driver, which converts LF characters to CR+LF characters for printers accepting files with CR+LF characters. The carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF) are control characters that mark the end of lines. As a result, by using this driver, you can send an LF character terminated file from your application to a printer accepting only CR+LF characters. The Generic LF-to-CRLF driver is a renamed version of the text-only driver from RHEL 7. The new name reflects its actual functionality.

RHEL on ARM now fully supports wifi adapters in RHEL 9.3

With this enhancement, you can now enable access to wifi adapters for several cards for the arm64 platforms.

NetworkManager now supports the no-aaaa option in resolv.conf

NetworkManager now supports adding the no-aaaa DNS option in the resolv.conf file. By using the no-aaaa value in the DNS option setting, you can disable IPv6 DNS resolution.

nmstate now supports mixing static DNS search along with dynamic DNS name servers

The nmstate framework now supports both static Domain Name System (DNS) search domains and dynamic DNS name servers, which nmstate obtained from Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) or the autoconf mechanism. Previously, static DNS search domains could not co-exist with dynamic DNS name servers because the dynamic configurations were discarded by nmstate. This often led to unnecessary complexity and limitations in network setup and management. This enhancement aims to bring more flexibility in managing DNS configurations. As a result, nmstate attempts to find a network interface to store the DNS configuration in the following order:

nmstate now supports the bridge.vlan-default-pvid NetworkManager configuration option

With this update, you can use the nmstate framework to configure the bridge.vlan-default-pvid NetworkManager configuration option. By using this option, you can set the default port VLAN identifier (PVID) for untagged traffic on a bridge interface that supports VLANs, when you use Linux bridge VLAN filtering. To achieve this result, use the following YAML configuration:

The NetworkManager service restarts immediately after the dbus service is restarted

Previously, after restarting dbus for some reason, NetworkManager stopped. This behavior was not optimal and caused a loss of connectivity. Therefore, this enhancement updates NetworkManager to become more robust and to make it restart automatically upon a dbus restart.

The nm-cloud-setup utility now supports IMDSv2 configuration

Users can configure an AWS Red Hat Enterprise Linux EC2 instance with Instance Metadata Service Version 2 (IMDSv2) with the nm-cloud-setup utility. To comply with improved security that restricts unauthorized access to EC2 metadata and new features, integration between AWS and Red Hat services is necessary to provide advanced features. This enhancement enables the nm-cloud-setup utility to fetch and save the IMDSv2 tokens, verify an EC2 environment, and retrieve information about available interfaces and IP configuration by using the secured IMDSv2 tokens.

NetworkManager notifies when using the deprecated ifcfg format

Connection profiles in ifcfg format are deprecated in RHEL 9 (see NetworkManager connection profiles in ifcfg format are deprecated). With this update, NetworkManager notifies users about the deprecation of this format:

NetworkManager now supports the lacp_active option in the bonding configuration

By using NetworkManager, the lacp_active option in bonding configuration provides fine-grained control over Link Aggregation Control Protocol Data Units (LACPDU) frames. The lacp_active option also adjusts the behavior of LACPDU frames and controls periodic transmission of these frames in the bonding setup. To customize network configurations, you can enable or disable periodic transmission of LACPDU frames by setting lacp_active to ON or OFF.

NetworkManager now supports configuration of the ns_ip6_target option for bond interfaces

This enhancement allows setting the arp_interval option by specifying a maximum of 16 IPv6 addresses as monitoring peers in NetworkManager for configuration of the ns_i6_target option for bond interfaces. Previously, it was not possible to specify IPv6 monitoring peers in NetworkManager. With this update, you can configure the ns_ip6_target option in the bond.options parameter by using the nmcli utility. NetworkManager applies this setting to the bond interface by enabling the specification of a maximum of 16 IPv6 addresses. This enhancement equally applies to IPv4 and IPv6 settings.

NetworkManager now supports both static and DHCP IP configuration on the same network interface

By using the nmstate utility, you can now assign a static IP address with dhcp: true or autoconf: true value on the DHCP or Ad-Hoc Network Autoconfiguration (autoconf) enabled interface.

nmstate supports MAC address identifiable network interface

The nmstate utility supports network configuration directly to a network interface with a MAC address instead of an interface name.

NetworkManager supports defining after how many failed ARP checks the bonding driver marks a port as down

This enhancement adds the arp_missed_max option to bond connection profiles in NetworkManager. If you use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) monitor to check if ports of a bond are up, you can now set arp_missed_max to define after how many failed checks the bonding driver marks the port as down.

NetworkManager supports specifying link-related properties

This enhancement adds the following network link properties to NetworkManager connection profiles:

The nmstate API support available for dhcp-send-hostname and dhcp-custom-hostname DHCP options

With this enhancement, the nmstate utility supports configuration of the following two DHCP options in the connection file:

NetworkManager rebased to version 1.44.0

The NetworkManager packages have been upgraded to upstream version 1.44.0, which provides several enhancements and bug fixes over the previous version:

SCTP rebased to the latest version of the kernel networking tree for RHEL 9

Notable changes in the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) networking subsystem include:

MPTCP rebased to the latest version of the kernel networking tree for RHEL 9

Notable changes in the Multipath TCP (MPTCP) protocol extension include:

The xdp-tools package rebased to version 1.4.0

The xdp-tools package has been upgraded to version 1.4.0, which provides multiple bug fixes and enhancements. Notable changes include:

iproute rebased to version 6.2.0

The iproute packages have been upgraded to upstream version 6.2.0, which provides several enhancements and bug fixes over the previous version. The most notable changes are:

The kernel supports activating bond ports in a specific order

With this enhancement, the kernel’s netlink interface supports setting a priority on each port if you configure a bond in active-backup, balance-tlb or balance-alb mode. The priority value uses a 32-bit Integer, and a higher value means a higher priority. As a result, you can now activate the bond ports in a specific order.

firewalld now avoids unnecessary firewall rule flushes

With the release of the RHBA-2023:7748, advisory the firewalld service was upgraded in a sense that it will not remove all the existing rules from the iptables configuration if both following conditions are met:

Introduction of new nmstate attributes for the VLAN interface

With this update of the nmstate framework, the following VLAN attributes were introduced:

Kernel version in RHEL 9.3

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.3 is distributed with the kernel version 5.14.0-362.8.1.

Support added for NVIDIA Grace CPUs

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.3 adds support for the NVIDIA Grace ARM 64-bit CPU.

The RHEL kernel now supports AutoIBRS

Automatic Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation (AutoIBRS) is a feature provided by the AMD EPYC 9004 Genoa family of processors and later CPU versions. AutoIBRS is the default mitigation for the Spectre v2 CPU vulnerability, which boosts performance and improves scalability.

perf rebased to version 6.2

The perf performance analysis tool has been rebased to version 6.2. Apart from numerous minor bug fixes and updates, the perf list command now displays Performance Monitor Unit (PMU) events that contain human-friendly names and descriptions. In addition, this update adds support for the following processors:

The Intel® QAT kernel driver rebased to upstream version 6.2

The Intel® Quick Assist Technology (QAT) has been rebased to upstream version 6.2. The Intel® QAT includes accelerators optimized for symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, compression performance, and other CPU intensive tasks.

vTPM functionality is available for Linux containers

This enhancement introduces virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) for Linux containers and other virtual environments. vTPM is a virtualized version of TPM that provides a dedicated TPM instance to use for a secure running environment. With vTPM proxy drivers, programs interact with an emulated TPM the same way as they interact with physical TPMs.

crash rebased to version 8.0.3

crash is an interactive utility to analyze a running system and a core dump file created by kdump in case of a kernel crash. The crash utility has been rebased to version 8.0.3 that includes many bug fixes and enhancements. The most notable enhancement is the added IPv6 support.

LVM thin-provisioned storage volumes supported as the vmcore dump target

The kdump mechanism now supports thin-provisioned logical volumes as the vmcore target. To configure LVM thin provisioning, complete the following steps:

makedumpfile rebased to upstream version 1.7.3

The makedumpfile tool, which makes the crash dump file small by compressing pages or excluding memory pages that are not required, has been rebased to upstream version 1.7.3. The rebase includes many bug fixes and enhancements.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports ARM’s SystemReady ES and IR tier

Red Hat Enterprise Linux now supports ARM’s SystemReady ES and IR, while previously only the SR tier was supported. In RHEL 9.3, the NVIDIA Orin, NXP i.MX 8M, and NXP i.MX 8M Mini modules have been enabled and are candidates for the RHEL hardware certification. Hardware partners are able to submit certifications by enrolling in the Red Hat hardware certification journey. Customers can use the supported hardware listed in the catalog for an improved experience in production.

RHEL on ARM now supports Bluetooth

With this enhancement, you can configure a bluetooth device by using the bluetoothctl tool on the command-line interface.

RHEL on ARM now fully supports USB-attached cameras in RHEL 9.3

This enhancement enables the CONFIG_MEDIA_SUPPORT kernel configuration for RHEL on AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures platforms. With that, you can now use USB cameras on AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures systems.

bpf rebased to version 6.3

The Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) facility has been rebased to Linux kernel version 6.3. Notable changes and enhancements include:

New default behavior of grub2-mkconfig with BLS

In the Boot Loader Specification (BLS) framework, GRUB generates the boot menu dynamically from BLS snippets at boot, and it is not predefined in the grub.cfg file.

NFS server now implements courteous server code for nfsd

This update introduces the implementation of courteous server code for nfsd in the RHEL kernel NFS server. With this new feature, the NFS server avoids revoking leases for clients that have lost contact with the server for an extended period, provided that there is no conflicting access while the client is out of contact.

DAX mount option and reflink are now compatible

With this update, reflinked files are now generally compatible with DAX mode. The file system DAX mount option -o dax=always is compatible with reflink-enabled file systems. Files that were reflinked can be set to DAX mode using inode flags. For more information see the xfs(5) man page.

New encryption types for the RPCSEC GSS Kerberos V5

The RPCSEC GSS Kerberos V5 mechanism now supports encryption types defined in RFC 6803 (Camellia Encryption for Kerberos 5) and RFC 8009 (AES Encryption with HMAC-SHA2 for Kerberos 5).

fuse3 now allows invalidating a directory entry without triggering umount

With this update, a new mechanism has been added to fuse3 package, that allows invalidating a directory entry without automatically triggering the umount of any mounts that exists on the entry.

Stratis storage manager is now available

Stratis is a local storage manager. It provides managed file systems on top of pools of storage with additional features to the user:

Improvements to GFS2 file system configuration and operation

The following updates have been implemented for GFS2 file systems:

dmpd rebased to version 1.0.2

The dmpd package has been upgraded to version 1.0.2. Notable changes include:

New per-device counter is added for SCSI devices

A new per-device counter, iotmo_cnt, is now added for the I/O timeouts in the SCSI updates. In addition to the iorequest_cnt count of I/O requests, the iodone_cnt I/O completions, and the ioerr_cnt I/O errors, the number of request timeouts can be seen. For example:

mpathcleanup flushes the multipath devices in device-mapper-multipath

The mpathcleanup tool works on SCSI-based multipath devices and removes the multipath device along with the SCSI path devices. Some users need to remove multipath devices and their path devices regularly. Previously, there was no tool available to remove multipath devices and a user-defined script was required for this operation.

nvme-cli rebased to version 2.4

The nvme-cli package has been upgraded to version 2.4, which provides multiple bug fixes and enhancements. Notable changes include:

Support for failover of LVM volume groups with missing physical volumes

The LVM-activate resource agent now supports two new options that allow volume group failover if the volume group is missing physical volumes:

IPaddr2 and IPsrcaddr cluster resource agents now support policy-based routing

The IPaddr2 and IPsrcaddr cluster resource agents now support policy-based routing,which enables you to configure complex routing scenarios. Policy-based routing requires that you configure the resource agent’s table parameter.

The Filesystem resource agent now supports the EFS file system type

The ocf:heartbeat:Filesystem cluster resource agent now supports the Amazon Elastic File System (EFS). You can now specify fstype=efs when configuring a Filesystem resource.

New pcs parsing requires meta keyword when specifying clone meta attributes

To ensure consistency in the pcs command format, configuring clone meta attributes with the pcs resource clone, pcs resource promotable, and pcs resource create commands without specifying the meta keyword is now deprecated.

Displaying the pcs commands for re-creating configured resource constraints

You can now display the pcs constraint commands that can be used to re-create configured resource constraints on a different system by using the pcs constraint command with the new --output-format=cmd option. The default output format is plain text, as in previous releases, which you can specify with the --output-format=text option. The plain text format has been changed slightly to make it consistent with the output format of other pcs commands.

Rebase Pacemaker packages to version: 2.1.6

The Pacemaker packages have been upgraded to upstream version 2.1.6, which provides several enhancements and bug fixes over the previous version.

Enhancements to the pcs property command

The pcs property command now supports the following enhancements:

A new environment variable in Python to control parsing of email addresses

To mitigate CVE-2023-27043, a backward incompatible change to ensure stricter parsing of email addresses was introduced in Python 3.

A new nodejs:20 module stream is fully supported

A new module stream, nodejs:20, previously available as a Technology Preview, is fully supported with the release of the RHEA-2023:7252 advisory. The nodejs:20 module stream now provides Node.js 20.9, which is a Long Term Support (LTS) version.

A new filter argument to the Python tarfile extraction functions

To mitigate CVE-2007-4559, Python adds a filter argument to the tarfile extraction functions. The argument allows turning tar features off for increased safety (including blocking the CVE-2007-4559 directory traversal attack). If a filter is not specified, the 'data' filter, which is the safest but most limited, is used by default in RHEL. In addition, Python emits a warning when your application has been affected.

The HTTP::Tiny Perl module now verifies TLS certificates by default

The default value for the verify_SSL option in the HTTP::Tiny Perl module has been changed from 0 to 1 to verify TLS certificates when using HTTPS. This change fixes CVE-2023-31486 for HTTP::Tiny and CVE-2023-31484 for the CPAN Perl module.

httpd rebased to version 2.4.57

The Apache HTTP Server has been updated to version 2.4.57, which provides bug fixes, enhancements, and security fixes over version 2.4.53 available since RHEL 9.1.

A new mod_authnz_fcgi module in httpd

The Apache HTTP Server now includes the mod_authnz_fcgi module, which enables FastCGI authorizer applications to authenticate users and authorize access to resources.

A new ssl_pass_phrase_dialog directive in nginx:1.22

With this update to the nginx:1.22 module stream, you can use the new ssl_pass_phrase_dialog directive to configure an external program that is called at nginx start for each encrypted private key.

A new rhel9/squid container image

The rhel9/squid container image is now available in the Red Hat Container Registry. Squid is a high-performance proxy caching server for web clients, supporting FTP, gopher, and HTTP data objects. Unlike traditional caching software, Squid handles all requests in a single, non-blocking, I/O-driven process. Squid keeps metadata and especially hot objects cached in RAM, caches DNS lookups, supports non-blocking DNS lookups, and implements negative caching of failed requests.

A new module stream: redis:7

Redis 7, an advanced key-value store, is now available as a new module stream, redis:7.

A new glibc option to influence optimized routine usage on IBM Z

On the IBM Z architecture, the glibc library selects function implementations based on the hardware capabilities, such as hwcaps and stfle bits. With this update, you can direct the choice made by the library by setting the glibc.cpu.hwcaps tunable.

Improved string and memory routine performance on Intel® Xeon® v5-based hardware in glibc

Previously, the default amount of cache used by glibc for string and memory routines resulted in lower than expected performance on Intel® Xeon® v5-based systems. With this update, the amount of cache to use has been tuned to improve performance.

The system GCC compiler updated to version 11.4.1

The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) provides tools for developing applications with the C, C++, and Fortran programming languages.

GCC now supports preserving register arguments

With this update, you can now store argument register content to the stack and generate proper Call Frame Information (CFI) to allow the unwinder to locate it without negatively impacting performance.

A new -mdaz-ftz option in GCC on the 64-bit Intel architecture

The system version of GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) on the 64-bit Intel architecture now supports the -mdaz-ftz option to enable flush-to-zero (FTZ) and denormals-are-zero (DAZ) flags in the MXCSR Control and Status Register.

New GCC Toolset 13

GCC Toolset 13 is a compiler toolset that provides recent versions of development tools. It is available as an Application Stream in the form of a Software Collection in the AppStream repository.

GCC Toolset 13: GCC rebased to version 13.1.1

In GCC Toolset 13, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has been updated to version 13.1.1. Notable changes include:

GCC Toolset 13: annobin rebased to version 12.20

GCC Toolset 13 provides the annobin package version 12.20. Notable enhancements include:

GCC Toolset 13: GDB rebased to version 12.1

GCC Toolset 13 provides GDB version 12.1.

GCC Toolset 13: bintuils rebased to version 2.40

GCC Toolset 13 provides the binutils package version 2.40. Notable enhancements include:

libabigail rebased to version 2.3

The libabigail package has been updated to version 2.3. Notable improvements include:

The find-debuginfo script in debugedit now supports the -q (--quiet) flag

With this update, you can use the find-debuginfo script’s -q (--quiet) flag in the debugedit utility to silence non-error output from the script.

Valgrind rebased to version 3.21.0

Valgrind has been updated to version 3.21.0. Notable enhancements include:

systemtap rebased to version 4.9

The systemtap package has been upgraded to version 4.9. Notable changes include:

elfutils rebased to version 0.189

The elfutils package has been updated to version 0.189. Notable improvements and bug fixes include:

libpfm rebased to version 4.13

The libpfm package has been updated to version 4.13. With this update, libpfm can access performance monitoring hardware native events for the following processor microarchitectures:

papi supports new processor microarchitectures

With this enhancement, you can access performance monitoring hardware using papi events presets on the following processor microarchitectures:

papi now supports fast performance event count read operations for 64-bit ARM processors

Previously on 64-bit ARM processors, all performance event counter read operations required the use of a resource-intensive system call. papi has been updated for 64-bit ARM to let processes monitoring themselves with the performance counters use a faster user-space read of the performance event counters. Setting the /proc/sys/kernel/perf_user_access parameter to 1 reduces the average number of clock cycles for papi to read 2 counters from 724 cycles to 29 cycles.

LLVM Toolset rebased to version 16.0.6

LLVM Toolset has been updated to version 16.0.6.

Rust Toolset rebased to version 1.71.1

Rust Toolset has been updated to version 1.71.1. Notable changes include:

The Rust profiler_builtins runtime component is now available

With this enhancement, the Rust profile_builtins runtime component is now available. This runtime component enables the following compiler options:

Go Toolset rebased to version 1.20.10

Go Toolset has been updated to version 1.20.10.

pcp rebased to version 6.0.5

The pcp package has been updated to version 6.0.5. Notable changes include:

PCP’s pmie utility now supports generating webhook events

The Performance Metrics Inference Engine (pmie) utility from Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) now supports generating webhook events. With this update, configured pmie rules generate events in a format consumable by Event-Driven Ansible (EDA). As a result, EDA can respond to PCP rules.

grafana rebased to version 9.2.10

The grafana package has been updated to version 9.2.10. Notable changes include:

Grafana no longer enables weak cryptographic ciphers

With this update, Grafana no longer enables ciphers that are considered weak for encrypting secure communication. The affected ciphers are:

.NET 8.0 is available

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.3 is distributed with .NET version 8.0. Notable improvements include:

samba rebased to version 4.18.6

The samba packages have been upgraded to upstream version 4.18.6, which provides bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. The most notable changes:

The ipaclient role now allows configuring user subID ranges on the IdM level

With this update, the ipaclient ansible-freeipa role provides the ipaclient_subid option, using which you can configure subID ranges on the Identity Management (IdM) level. Without the new option set explicitly to true, the ipaclient role keeps the default behavior and installs the client without subID ranges configured for IdM users.

Multiple IdM groups and services can now be managed in a single Ansible task

With this enhancement in ansible-freeipa, you can add, modify, and delete multiple Identity Management (IdM) user groups and services by using a single Ansible task. For that, use the groups and services options of the ipagroup and ipaservice modules.

ansible-freeipa ipaserver role now supports Random Serial Numbers

With this update, you can use the ipaserver_random_serial_numbers=true option with the ansible-freeipa ipaserver role. This way, you can generate fully random serial numbers for certificates and requests in PKI when installing an Identity Management (IdM) server using Ansible. With RSNv3, you can avoid range management in large IdM installations and prevent common collisions when reinstalling IdM.

ipa rebased to version 4.10.2

The ipa package has been upgraded to version 4.10.2. Notable changes include:

The ipaserver_remove_on_server and ipaserver_ignore_topology_disconnect options are now available in the ipaserver role

If removing a replica from an Identity Management (IdM) topology by using the remove_server_from_domain option of the ipaserver ansible-freeipa role leads to a disconnected topology, you must now specify which part of the domain you want to preserve. Specifically, you must do the following:

IdM now supports the min_lifetime parameter

With this enhancement, the min_lifetime parameter has been added to the /etc/gssproxy/*.conf file. The min_lifetime parameter triggers the renewal of a service ticket in case its remaining lifetime is lower than this value.

You can now manage IdM certificates using the ipacert Ansible module

You can now use the ansible-freeipa ipacert module to request or retrieve SSL certificates for Identity Management (IdM) users, hosts and services. The users, hosts and services can then use these certificates to authenticate to IdM. You can also revoke the certificates, and restore certificates that have been put on hold.

The optional_pac_tkt_chksum option helps preserve interoperability between different versions of krb5

You can now use the optional_pac_tkt_chksum option to preserve the interoperability between RHEL Kerberos Distribution Center (KDC) servers running different versions of the krb5 package. Specifically, you can change their behavior regarding Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC) ticket signature verification. If you set the optional_pac_tkt_chksum string attribute to true for the Kerberos principal expected to sign a ticket, then the KDC does not reject service for user (S4U) requests containing a ticket that lacks the PAC ticket signature. The principal to sign the ticket is the ticket-granting service (TGS) one or a cross-realm TGS one, depending on the realm of the ticket’s target service.

IdM now supports resource-based constrained delegation

With this update, IdM now supports resource-based constrained delegation (RBCD). RBCD allows a granular control of delegation on a resource level and access can be set by the owner of the service to which credentials are delegated.

RHEL 9.3 provides 389-ds-base 2.3.4

RHEL 9.3 is distributed with the 389-ds-base package version 2.3.4. Notable bug fixes and enhancements over version 2.3.4 include:

Directory Server can now close a client connection if a bind operation fails

Previously, when a bind operation failed, some applications that ignore the bind return code could load Director Server with further requests.

Automembership plug-in improvements. It no longer cleans up groups by default

Previously, the automember rebuild task went through all the automember rules and removed all the memberships, then the task rebuilt the memberships from scratch. Thus, the rebuild task was expensive, especially if other be_txn plugins are enabled.

New passwordAdminSkipInfoUpdate: on/off configuration option is now available

You can add a new passwordAdminSkipInfoUpdate: on/off setting under the cn=config entry to provide a fine grained control over password updates performed by password administrators. When you enable this setting, password updates do not update certain attributes, for example, passwordHistory,passwordExpirationTime,passwordRetryCount, pwdReset, and passwordExpWarned.

New slapi_memberof() plug-in function is now available for Directory Server plug-ins and client applications

The new slapi_memberof() function retrieves distinguished names (DNs) of groups to which the given entry belongs directly or indirectly. Previously, MemberOf, Referential Integrity, and ACL plug-ins implemented their own mechanism to retrieve such groups. With this update, you can use the slapi_memberof() function that introduces a unified mechanism to return group DNs.

Directory Server now replaces the virtual attribute nsRole with an indexed attribute for managed and filtered roles

Previously, LDAP searches that contained the virtual attribute nsRole in the filter were time consuming because that attribute cannot be indexed. With this update, when you perform the ldapsearch with virtual attribute nsRole in the filter, Directory Server replaces the nsRole attribute the following way:

New nsslapd-numlisteners configuration option is now available

The nsslapd-numlisteners attribute specifies the number of listener threads Directory Server can use to monitor established connections. You can improve the response times when the server experiences a large number of client connection by increasing the attribute value.

IdM supports the option to control the encryption type used to sign the PAC

By default, the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) generates an AES HMAC-SHA2 signature for the Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC). However, this encryption type is not supported by Active Directory (AD). As a result, AD cross-realm constrained delegation requests are not processed correctly.

Identity Management API is now fully supported

The Identity Management (IdM) API was available as a Technology Preview in RHEL 9.2 and as of RHEL 9.3, it is fully supported.

Intel Arc A-Series graphics is now fully supported

The Intel Arc A-Series graphics (Alchemist or DG2) feature, previously available as a Technology Preview, is now fully supported. Intel Arc A-Series graphics is a GPU that enables hardware acceleration, mostly used in PC gaming.

Podman health check action is now available

You can select one of the following Podman health check actions when creating a new container:

Stratis is now available in the RHEL web console

With this update, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console provides the ability to manage Stratis storage.

New RHEL system role for managing systemd units

The rhel-system-role package now contains the systemd RHEL system role. You can use this role to deploy unit files and manage systemd units on multiple systems. You can automate systemd functionality by providing systemd unit files and templates, and by specifying the state of those units, such as started, stopped, masked and other.

New option in the ssh role to disable configuration backups

You can now prevent old configuration files from being backed up before they are overwritten by setting the new ssh_backup option to false. Previously, backup configuration files were created automatically, which might be unnecessary. The default value of the ssh_backup option is true, which preserves the original behavior.

keylime_server RHEL system role

With the new keylime_server RHEL system role, you can use Ansible Playbooks to configure the verifier and registrar Keylime components on RHEL 9 systems. Keylime is a remote machine attestation tool that uses the trusted platform module (TPM) technology.

Support for new ha_cluster system role features

The ha_cluster system role now supports the following features:

storage system role supports configuring the stripe size for RAID LVM volumes

With this update, you can now specify a custom stripe size when creating RAID LVM devices. For better performance, use the custom stripe size for SAP HANA. The recommended stripe size for RAID LVM volumes is 64 KB.

The network RHEL system role supports the auto-dns option to control automatic DNS record updates

This enhancement provides support for defined name servers and search domains. You can now use only the name servers and search domains specified in dns and dns_search properties while disabling automatically configured name servers and search domains such as dns record from DHCP. With this enhancement, you can disable automatically auto dns record by changing the auto-dns settings.

The network RHEL system role supports the no-aaaa DNS option

You can now use the no-aaaa option to configure DNS settings on managed nodes. Previously, there was no option to suppress AAAA queries generated by the stub resolver, including AAAA lookups triggered by NSS-based interfaces such as getaddrinfo; only DNS lookups were affected. With this enhancement, you can now suppress AAAA queries generated by the stub resolver.

The ad_integration RHEL system role can now rejoin an AD domain

With this update, you can now use the ad_integration RHEL system role to rejoin an Active Directory (AD) domain. To do this, set the ad_integration_force_rejoin variable to true. If the realm_list output shows that host is already in an AD domain, it will leave the existing domain before rejoining it.

The certificate RHEL system role now allows changing certificate file mode when using certmonger

Previously, certificates created by the certificate RHEL system role with the certmonger provider used a default file mode. However, in some use-cases you might require a more restrictive mode. With this update, you can now set a different certificate and a key file mode using the mode parameter.

The postgresql RHEL system role is now available

The new postgresql RHEL system role installs, configures, manages, and starts the PostgreSQL server. The role also optimizes the database server settings to improve performance.

podman RHEL system role now supports Quadlets, health checks, and secrets

Starting with Podman 4.6, you can use the podman_quadlet_specs variable in the podman RHEL system role. You can define a Quadlet by specifying a unit file, or in the inventory by a name, a type of unit, and a specification. Types of a unit can be the following: container, kube, network, and volume. Note that Quadlets work only with root containers on RHEL 8. Quadlets work with rootless containers on RHEL 9.

Improved performance of the selinux system role with restorecon -T 0

The selinux system role now uses the -T 0 option with the restorecon command in all applicable cases. This improves the performance of tasks that restore default SELinux security contexts on files.

The rhc system role now supports setting a proxy server type

The newly introduced attribute scheme under the rhc_proxy parameter enables you to configure the proxy server type by using the rhc system role. You can set two values: http, the default and https.

firewall RHEL system role supports variables related to ipsets

With this update of the firewall RHEL system role, you can define, modify, and delete ipsets. Also, you can add and remove those ipsets from firewall zones. Alternatively, you can use those ipsets when defining firewall rich rules.

RHEL system roles now have new volume options for mount point customization

With this update, you can now specify mount_user, mount_group, and mount_permissions parameters for your mount directory.

The firewall RHEL system role has an option to disable conflicting services, and it no longer fails if firewalld is masked

Previously, the firewall system role failed when the firewalld service was masked on the role run or in the presence of conflicting services. This update brings two notable enhancements:

Resetting the firewall RHEL system role configuration now requires minimal downtime

Previously, when you reset the firewall role configuration by using the previous: replaced variable, the firewalld service restarted. Restarting adds downtime and prolongs the period of an open connection in which firewalld does not block traffic from active connections. With this enhancement, the firewalld service completes the configuration reset by reloading instead of restarting. Reloading minimizes the downtime and reduces the opportunity to bypass firewall rules. As a result, using the previous: replaced variable to reset the firewall role configuration now requires minimal downtime.

sevctl is now fully compatible with AMD EPYC Rome and Milan

With this update, the sevctl utility correctly recognizes the latest AMD EPYC cores, including the AMD EPYC Rome and AMD EPYC Milan series. As a result, you can use sevctl to configure the features of AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) that are available on these CPUs.

virtio-vga and virtio-gpu devices now support blob resources

It is now possible for virtio-vga and virtio-gpu devices to use blob memory resources, which improves their performance in certain scenarios. To attach a blob resource to a virtio graphics device, add a blob="on" option to the corresponding <video> section in the virtual machine’s XML configuration. For example:

Virtualization support for 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors

With this update, virtualization on RHEL 9 adds support for the 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, formerly known as Sapphire Rapids. As a result, virtual machines hosted on RHEL 9 can now use the SapphireRapids CPU model and utilise new features that the processors provide.

Improved memory reclaiming for Secure Execution on IBM Z

When using a virtual machine (VM) with IBM Secure Execution on IBM Z, you can now set up enhanced memory reclaiming for the VM. If the VM is using 32 GiB or more RAM, this setting improves the performance of rebooting or stopping the VM.

New virtualization features in the RHEL web console

With this update, the RHEL web console includes new features in the Virtual Machines page. You can now:

cloud-init supports NetworkManager keyfiles

With this update, the cloud-init utility can use a NetworkManager (NM) keyfile to configure the network of the created cloud instance.

cloud-init now uses VMware datasources by default on ESXi

When creating RHEL virtual machines (VMs) on a host that uses the VMware ESXi hypervisor, such as the VMware vSphere cloud platform. This improves the performance and stability of creating an ESXi instance of RHEL by using cloud-init. Note, however, that ESXi is still compatible with Open Virtualization Format (OVF) datasources, and you can use an OVF datasource if a VMware one is not available.

sos rebased to version 4.6

The sos utility, for collecting configuration, diagnostic, and troubleshooting data, has been rebased to version 4.6. This update provides the following enhancements:

Podman supports pulling and pushing images compressed with zstd

You can pull and push images compressed with the zstd format. The zstd compression is more efficient and faster than gzip. It can reduce the amount of network traffic and storage involved in pulling and pushing the image.

Quadlet in Podman is now available

Beginning with Podman v4.6, you can use Quadlet to automatically generate a systemd service file from a container description. The Quadlets might be easier to use than the podman generate systemd command because the description focuses on the relevant container details and without the technical complexity of running containers under systemd.

The Container Tools packages have been updated

The updated Container Tools RPM meta-package, which contain the Podman, Buildah, Skopeo, crun, and runc tools, are now available. This update applies a series of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version.

Podman now supports a Podmansh login shell

Beginning with Podman v4.6, you can use the Podmansh login shell to manage user access and control. Configure your settings to use the /usr/bin/podmansh command as a login shell instead of a standard shell command, for example, /usr/bin/bash. When a user logs into a system setup, the podmansh command runs the user’s session into a Podman container named podmansh. Containers into which users log in are defined using the Quadlet files, which are created in the /etc/containers/systemd/users/ directory. In these files, set the ContainerName field in the [Container] section to podmansh. The systemd automatically starts podmansh when the user session starts and continues running until all user sessions exit.

Clients for sigstore signatures with Fulcio and Rekor are now available

With Fulcio and Rekor servers, you can now create signatures by using short-term certificates based on an OpenID Connect (OIDC) server authentication, instead of manually managing a private key. Clients for sigstore signatures with Fulcio and Rekor, previously available as a Technology Preview, are now fully supported. This added functionality is the client side support only, and does not include either the Fulcio or Rekor servers.

The pasta networking mode is now available

Starting with Podman v4.4.1, you can use the pasta network mode. It is a high-performance replacement of the default network mode slirp4netns and supports IPv6 forwarding. To select the pasta network mode, install the passt package to use the podman run command with the --network=pasta option. With Podman v4.6, you can set default rootless network mode in the /etc/containers/containers.conf configuration file by using the default_rootless_network_cmd field under the [network] section.

UBI 9 Micro Container Image no longer contains zoneinfo installed by tzdata

With this update, the time zone information provided by the tzdata package is no longer included in UBI 9 Micro container images, consequently reducing the image size. The UBI 9 Minimal and UBI 9 Micro containers are UTC-only, and users should reinstall the tzdata package to get the full zoneinfo, if needed.