Chapter 10. Deprecated functionalities

Deprecated Kickstart commands

The following Kickstart commands have been deprecated:

User and Group customizations in the edge-commit and edge-container blueprints have been deprecated

Specifying a user or group customization in the blueprints is deprecated for the edge-commit and edge-container image types, because the user customization disappears when you upgrade the image and do not specify the user in the blueprint again.

The initial-setup package now has been deprecated

The initial-setup package has been deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.3 and will be removed in the next major RHEL release. As a replacement, use gnome-initial-setup for the graphical user interface.

The provider_hostip and provider_fedora_geoip values of the inst.geoloc boot option are deprecated

The provider_hostip and provider_fedora_geoip values that specified the GeoIP API for the inst.geoloc= boot option are deprecated. As a replacement, you can use the geolocation_provider=URL option to set the required geolocation in the installation program configuration file. You can still use the inst.geoloc=0 option to disable the geolocation.

Capturing screenshots from the Anaconda GUI with a global hot key is deprecated

Previously, users could capture screenshots of the Anaconda GUI by using a global hot key. This meant that users could extract the screenshots manually from the installation environment for any further usage. This functionality has been deprecated.

Anaconda built-in help has been deprecated

The built-in documentation from spokes and hubs of all Anaconda user interfaces, which is available during Anaconda installation, has been deprecated. As a replacement, the Anaconda user interfaces will be self-descriptive and users can refer to the official RHEL documentation in the future major RHEL release.

Support for NVDIMM devices has been deprecated

Previously, the installation program allowed reconfiguring NVDIMM devices during installation. This support for NVDIMM devices during the Kickstart and GUI installation has been deprecated, and will be removed in the next major RHEL release. The NVDIMM devices in the sector mode will still be visible and usable in the installation program.

Unable to load an updated driver from the driver update disc in the installation environment

A new version of a driver from the driver update disc might not load if the same driver from the installation initial RAM disk has already been loaded. As a consequence, an updated version of the driver cannot be applied to the installation environment.

SHA-1 is deprecated for cryptographic purposes

The usage of the SHA-1 message digest for cryptographic purposes has been deprecated in RHEL 9. The digest produced by SHA-1 is not considered secure because of many documented successful attacks based on finding hash collisions. The RHEL core crypto components no longer create signatures using SHA-1 by default. Applications in RHEL 9 have been updated to avoid using SHA-1 in security-relevant use cases.

fapolicyd.rules is deprecated

The /etc/fapolicyd/rules.d/ directory for files containing allow and deny execution rules replaces the /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.rules file. The fagenrules script now merges all component rule files in this directory to the /etc/fapolicyd/compiled.rules file. Rules in /etc/fapolicyd/fapolicyd.trust are still processed by the fapolicyd framework but only for ensuring backward compatibility.

SCP is deprecated in RHEL 9

The secure copy protocol (SCP) is deprecated because it has known security vulnerabilities. The SCP API remains available for the RHEL 9 lifecycle but using it reduces system security.

OpenSSL requires padding for RSA encryption in FIPS mode

OpenSSL no longer supports RSA encryption without padding in FIPS mode. RSA encryption without padding is uncommon and is rarely used. Note that key encapsulation with RSA (RSASVE) does not use padding but is still supported.

OpenSSL deprecates the Engines API

The OpenSSL 3.0 TLS toolkit deprecated the Engines API. The Engines interface is superseded by the Providers API. The migration of applications and existing engines to Providers is underway. The deprecated Engines API might be removed in a future major release.

openssl-pkcs11 is now deprecated

As a part of the ongoing migration of deprecated OpenSSL engines to the Providers API, the pkcs11-provider package replaces the openssl-pkcs11 package (engine_pkcs11). The openssl-pkcs11 package is now deprecated. The openssl-pkcs11 package might be removed in a future major release.

RHEL 8 and 9 OpenSSL certificate and signing containers are now deprecated

The OpenSSL portable certificate and signing containers available in the ubi8/openssl and ubi9/openssl repositories in the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog are now deprecated due to low demand.

Digest-MD5 in SASL is deprecated

The Digest-MD5 authentication mechanism in the Simple Authentication Security Layer (SASL) framework is deprecated, and it might be removed from the cyrus-sasl packages in a future major release.

OpenSSL deprecates MD2, MD4, MDC2, Whirlpool, Blowfish, CAST, DES, IDEA, RC2, RC4, RC5, SEED, and PBKDF1

The OpenSSL project has deprecated a set of cryptographic algorithms because they are insecure, uncommonly used, or both. Red Hat also discourages the use of those algorithms, and RHEL 9 provides them for migrating encrypted data to use new algorithms. Users must not depend on those algorithms for the security of their systems.

/etc/system-fips is now deprecated

Support for indicating FIPS mode through the /etc/system-fips file has been removed, and the file will not be included in future versions of RHEL. To install RHEL in FIPS mode, add the fips=1 parameter to the kernel command line during the system installation. You can check whether RHEL operates in FIPS mode by using the fips-mode-setup --check command.

libcrypt.so.1 is now deprecated

The libcrypt.so.1 library is now deprecated, and it might be removed in a future version of RHEL.

The deprecated --token option of subscription-manager register will stop working at the end of November 2024

The deprecated --token=<TOKEN> option of the subscription-manager register command will no longer be a supported authentication method from the end of November 2024. The default entitlement server, subscription.rhsm.redhat.com, will no longer be allowing token-based authentication. As a consequence, if you use subscription-manager register --token=<TOKEN>, the registration will fail with the following error message:

The dump utility from the dump package has been deprecated

The dump utility used for backup of file systems has been deprecated and will not be available in RHEL 9.

The SQLite database backend in Bacula has been deprecated

The Bacula backup system supported multiple database backends: PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite. The SQLite backend has been deprecated and will become unsupported in a later release of RHEL. As a replacement, migrate to one of the other backends (PostgreSQL or MySQL) and do not use the SQLite backend in new deployments.

The %vmeff metric from the sysstat package has been deprecated

The %vmeff metric from the sysstat package to measure the page reclaim efficiency will no longer be supported in a future major version of RHEL. The values of the %vmeff column returned by the sar -B command are incorrect because sysstat does not parse all relevant /proc/vmstat values provided by later kernel versions.

Setting the TMPDIR variable in the ReaR configuration file is deprecated

Setting the TMPDIR environment variable in the /etc/rear/local.conf or /etc/rear/site.conf ReaR configuration file), by using a statement such as export TMPDIR=…​, is deprecated.

cgroupsv1 is now deprecated in RHEL 9

The cgroups is a kernel subsystem used for process tracking, system resource allocation and partitioning. Systemd service manager supports booting in the cgroups v1 mode and in cgroups v2 mode. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, the default mode is v2. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, systemd will not support booting in the cgroups v1 mode and only cgroups v2 mode will be available.

Client-side and server-side DHCP packages are deprecated

Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has announced the end of maintenance for ISC DHCP as of the end of 2022. As a result, Red Hat has decided to deprecate the use of client-side and server-side DHCP packages in RHEL 9 and not to distribute them in later major versions of RHEL. Customers must prepare for the migration to available alternatives, such as dhcpcd and ISC Kea.

The sendmail, libotr, mod_security, and spamassassin packages are now deprecated

The following packages are deprecated in RHEL 9 and will not be distributed in later major versions of RHEL:

Network teams are deprecated in RHEL 9

The teamd service and the libteam library are deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 and will be removed in the next major release. As a replacement, configure a bond instead of a network team.

NetworkManager connection profiles in ifcfg format are deprecated

In RHEL 9.0 and later, connection profiles in ifcfg format are deprecated. The next major RHEL release will remove the support for this format. However, in RHEL 9, NetworkManager still processes and updates existing profiles in this format if you modify them.

The iptables back end in firewalld is deprecated

In RHEL 9, the iptables framework is deprecated. As a consequence, the iptables backend and the direct interface in firewalld are also deprecated. Instead of the direct interface you can use the native features in firewalld to configure the required rules.

The firewalld lockdown feature is deprecated.

The lockdown feature in firewalld is deprecated because it cannot prevent processes that are running as root from adding themselves to the allow list. The lockdown feature might be removed in a future major RHEL release.

The connection.master, connection.slave-type, and connection.autoconnect-slaves properties are deprecated

Red Hat is committed to using conscious language. For details about this initiative, see Making open source more inclusive. Therefore, the connection.master, connection.slave-type, and connection.autoconnect-slaves properties were renamed. To ensure backward compatibility, aliases have been created that map the old property names to the new ones:

The PF_KEYv2 kernel API is deprecated

Applications can configure the kernel’s IPsec implementation by using the PV_KEYv2 and the newer netlink API. PV_KEYv2 is not actively maintained upstream and misses important security features, such as modern ciphers, offload, and extended sequence number support. As a result, starting with RHEL 9.3, the PV_KEYv2 API is deprecated and will be removed in the next major RHEL release. If you use this kernel API in your application, migrate it to use the modern netlink API as an alternative.

ATM encapsulation is deprecated in RHEL 9

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) encapsulation enables Layer-2 (Point-to-Point Protocol, Ethernet) or Layer-3 (IP) connectivity for the ATM Adaptation Layer 5 (AAL-5). Red Hat has not been providing support for ATM NIC drivers since RHEL 7. The support for ATM implementation is being dropped in RHEL 9. These protocols are currently used only in chipsets, which support the ADSL technology and are being phased out by manufacturers. Therefore, ATM encapsulation is deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.

The kexec_load system call for kexec-tools has been deprecated

The kexec_load system call, which loads the second kernel, will not be supported in future RHEL releases. The kexec_file_load system call replaces kexec_load and is now the default system call on all architectures.

Network teams are deprecated in RHEL 9

The teamd service and the libteam library are deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 and will be removed in the next major release. As a replacement, configure a bond instead of a network team.

lvm2-activation-generator and its generated services removed in RHEL 9.0

The lvm2-activation-generator program and its generated services lvm2-activation, lvm2-activation-early, and lvm2-activation-net are removed in RHEL 9.0. The lvm.conf event_activation setting, used to activate the services, is no longer functional. The only method for auto activating volume groups is event based activation.

Persistent Memory Development Kit (pmdk) and support library have been deprecated in RHEL 9

pmdk is a collection of libraries and tools for System Administrators and Application Developers to simplify managing and accessing persistent memory devices. pmdk and support library have been deprecated in RHEL 9. This also includes the -debuginfo packages.

The md-linear and md-faulty modules have been deprecated

The following MD RAID kernel modules have been deprecated, and will be removed in a future major RHEL release:

The VDO sysfs parameters have been deprecated

The Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO) sysfs parameters have been deprecated and will be removed in a future major RHEL release. Except for log_level, all module-level sysfs parameters for the kvdo module will be removed. For individual dm-vdo targets, all sysfs parameters specific to VDO will also be removed. There is no change for the parameters that are common to all DM targets. Configuration values for dm-vdo targets, which are currently set by updating the removed module-level parameters, can no longer be changed.

libdb has been deprecated

RHEL 8 and RHEL 9 currently provide Berkeley DB (libdb) version 5.3.28, which is distributed under the LGPLv2 license. The upstream Berkeley DB version 6 is available under the AGPLv3 license, which is more restrictive.

Smaller size of keys than 2048 are deprecated by openssl 3.0 in Go’s FIPS mode

Key sizes smaller than 2048 bits are deprecated by openssl 3.0 and no longer work in Go’s FIPS mode.

Some PKCS1 v1.5 modes are now deprecated in Go’s FIPS mode

Some PKCS1 v1.5 modes are not approved in FIPS-140-3 for encryption and are disabled. They will no longer work in Go’s FIPS mode.

32-bit packages are deprecated

Linking against 32-bit multilib packages is deprecated. The *.i686 packages will remain supported for the life cycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, but will be removed in the next major version of RHEL.

SHA-1 in OpenDNSSec is now deprecated

OpenDNSSec supports exporting Digital Signatures and authentication records using the SHA-1 algorithm. The use of the SHA-1 algorithm is no longer supported. With the RHEL 9 release, SHA-1 in OpenDNSSec is deprecated and it might be removed in a future minor release. Additionally, OpenDNSSec support is limited to its integration with Red Hat Identity Management. OpenDNSSec is not supported standalone.

The SSSD implicit files provider domain is disabled by default

The SSSD implicit files provider domain, which retrieves user information from local files such as /etc/shadow and group information from /etc/groups, is now disabled by default.

The SSSD files provider has been deprecated

The SSSD files provider has been deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9. The files provider might be removed from a future release of RHEL.

The enumeration feature has been deprecated for AD and IdM

The enumeration feature enables you to list all users or groups by using getent passwd or getent group commands without arguments for Active Directory (AD), Identity Management (IdM), and LDAP providers. Support for the enumeration feature has been deprecated for AD and IdM in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9. The enumeration feature will be removed for AD and IdM in RHEL 10.

The libsss_simpleifp subpackage has been deprecated

The libsss_simpleifp subpackage that provides the libsss_simpleifp.so library has been deprecated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9. The libsss_simpleifp subpackage might be removed from a future release of RHEL.

The SMB1 protocol is deprecated in Samba

Starting with Samba 4.11, the insecure Server Message Block version 1 (SMB1) protocol is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

GTK 2 is now deprecated

The legacy GTK 2 toolkit and the following, related packages have been deprecated:

LibreOffice is deprecated

The LibreOffice RPM packages are now deprecated and will be removed in a future major RHEL release. LibreOffice continues to be fully supported through the entire life cycle of RHEL 7, 8, and 9.

Motif has been deprecated

The Motif widget toolkit has been deprecated in RHEL, because development in the upstream Motif community is inactive.

The mssql_ha_cluster_run_role has been deprecated

The mssql_ha_cluster_run_role variable has been deprecated. Instead, use the mssql_manage_ha_cluster variable.

The network system role displays a deprecation warning when configuring teams on RHEL 9 nodes

The network teaming capabilities have been deprecated in RHEL 9. As a result, using the network RHEL system role on a RHEL 8 control node to configure a network team on RHEL 9 nodes, shows a warning about the deprecation.

SecureBoot image verification using SHA1-based signatures is deprecated

Performing SecureBoot image verification using SHA1-based signatures on UEFI (PE/COFF) executables has become deprecated. Instead, Red Hat recommends using signatures based on the SHA2 algorithm, or later.

The virtual floppy driver has become deprecated

The isa-fdc driver, which controls virtual floppy disk devices, is now deprecated, and will become unsupported in a future release of RHEL. Therefore, to ensure forward compatibility with migrated virtual machines (VMs), Red Hat discourages using floppy disk devices in VMs hosted on RHEL 9.

qcow2-v2 image format is deprecated

With RHEL 9, the qcow2-v2 format for virtual disk images has become deprecated, and will become unsupported in a future major release of RHEL. In addition, the RHEL 9 Image Builder cannot create disk images in the qcow2-v2 format.

virt-manager has been deprecated

The Virtual Machine Manager application, also known as virt-manager, has been deprecated. The RHEL web console, also known as Cockpit, is intended to become its replacement in a subsequent release. It is, therefore, recommended that you use the web console for managing virtualization in a GUI. Note, however, that some features available in virt-manager might not be yet available in the RHEL web console.

libvirtd has become deprecated

The monolithic libvirt daemon, libvirtd, has been deprecated in RHEL 9, and will be removed in a future major release of RHEL. Note that you can still use libvirtd for managing virtualization on your hypervisor, but Red Hat recommends switching to the newly introduced modular libvirt daemons. For instructions and details, see the RHEL 9 Configuring and Managing Virtualization document.

Legacy CPU models are now deprecated

A significant number of CPU models have become deprecated and will become unsupported for use in virtual machines (VMs) in a future major release of RHEL. The deprecated models are as follows:

RDMA-based live migration is deprecated

With this update, migrating running virtual machines using Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) has become deprecated. As a result, it is still possible to use the rdma:// migration URI to request migration over RDMA, but this feature will become unsupported in a future major release of RHEL.

The Intel vGPU feature has been removed

Previously, as a Technology Preview, it was possible to divide a physical Intel GPU device into multiple virtual devices referred to as mediated devices. These mediated devices could then be assigned to multiple virtual machines (VMs) as virtual GPUs. As a result, these VMs shared the performance of a single physical Intel GPU, however only selected Intel GPUs were compatible with this feature.

pmem device passthrough has become deprecated

With this update, the non-volatile memory library (nvml) packages have become deprecated, and will be removed in a future major version of RHEL. As a consequence, when the package removal occurs, it will no longer be possible to pass persistent memory (pmem) devices to the virtual machines (VMs). Note that emulated NVDIMM devices backed by volatile memory or files will still be available, but will not be possible to configure as persistent.

Using Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 as a guest operating system is not supported

Because Microsoft ended support for the following versions of Windows, Red Hat also removed support for using these versions as a guest operating system in this update.

Running RHEL 9 containers on a RHEL 7 host is not supported

Running RHEL 9 containers on a RHEL 7 host is not supported. It might work, but it is not guaranteed.

SHA1 hash algorithm within Podman has been deprecated

The SHA1 algorithm used to generate the filename of the rootless network namespace is no longer supported in Podman. Therefore, rootless containers started before updating to Podman 4.1.1 or later have to be restarted if they are joined to a network (and not just using slirp4netns) to ensure they can connect to containers started after the upgrade.

rhel9/pause has been deprecated

The rhel9/pause container image has been deprecated.

The CNI network stack has been deprecated

The Container Network Interface (CNI) network stack is deprecated and will be removed from Podman in a future minor release of RHEL. Previously, containers connected to the single Container Network Interface (CNI) plugin only via DNS. Podman v.4.0 introduced a new Netavark network stack. You can use the Netavark network stack with Podman and other Open Container Initiative (OCI) container management applications. The Netavark network stack for Podman is also compatible with advanced Docker functionalities. Containers in multiple networks can access containers on any of those networks.

The Inkscape and LibreOffice Flatpak images are deprecated

The rhel9/inkscape-flatpak and rhel9/libreoffice-flatpak Flatpak images, which are available as Technology Previews, have been deprecated.

pasta as a network name has been deprecated

The support for pasta as a network name value is deprecated and will not be accepted in the next major release of Podman, version 5.0. You can use the pasta network name value to create a unique network mode within Podman by employing the podman run --network and podman create --network commands.

The BoltDB database backend has been deprecated

The BoltDB database backend is deprecated as of RHEL 9.4. In a future version of RHEL, the BoltDB database backend will be removed and will no longer be available to Podman. For Podman, use the SQLite database backend, which is now the default as of RHEL 9.4.

The CNI network stack has been deprecated

The Container Network Interface (CNI) network stack is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use the Netavark network stack instead. For more information, see Switching the network stack from CNI to Netavark.

The Podman v5.0 upcoming deprecations

The following will be deprecated in the upcoming Podman v5.0, which will be released in RHEL 9.5 and RHEL 10.0 Beta:

The rhel9/openssl has been deprecated

The rhel9/openssl container image has been deprecated.