Chapter 4. New features This part describes new features and major enhancements introduced in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2. 4.1. Installer and image creation A new and improved way to create blueprints and images in the image builder web console With this enhancement, you have access to a unified version of the image builder tool and a significant improvement in your user experience. Notable enhancements in the image builder dashboard GUI include: You can now customize your blueprints with all the customizations previously supported only in the CLI, such as kernel, file system, firewall, locale, and other customizations. You can import blueprints by either uploading or dragging the blueprint in the .JSON or .TOML format and create images from the imported blueprint. You can also export or save your blueprints in the .JSON or .TOML format. Access to a blueprint list that you can sort, filter, and is case-sensitive. With the image builder dashboard, you can now access your blueprints, images, and sources by navigating through the following tabs: Blueprint - Under the Blueprint tab, you can now import, export, or delete your blueprints. Images - Under the Images tab, you can: Download images. Download image logs. Delete images. Sources - Under the Sources tab, you can: Download images. Download image logs. Create sources for images. Delete images. Jira:RHELPLAN-139448 Ability to create customized files and directories in the /etc directory With this enhancement, two new blueprint customizations are available. The [[customizations.files]] and the [[customizations.directories]] blueprint customizations enable you to create customized files and directories in the /etc directory of your image. Currently, you can use these customization only in the /etc directory. The [[customizations.directories]] enables you to: Create new directories Set user and group ownership for the directory Set the mode permission in the octal format With the [[customizations.files]] blueprint customizations you can: Create new files under the parent / directory Modifying existing files - this overrides the existing content Set user and group ownership for the file you are creating Set the mode permission in the octal format Note The new blueprint customizations are supported by all the image types, such as edge-container , edge-commit , among others. The customizations not supported in the blueprints used to create Installer images, such as edge-raw-image , edge-installer , and edge-simplified-installer . Jira:RHELPLAN-147428 Ability to specify user in a blueprint for simplified-installer images Previously, when creating a blueprint for a simplified-installer image, you could not specify a user in the blueprint customization, because the customization was not used and was discarded. With this update, when you create an image from the blueprint, this blueprint creates a user under the /usr/lib/passwd directory and a password under the /usr/etc/shadow directory during installation time. You can log in to the device with the username and the password you created for the blueprint. Note that after you access the system, you need to create users, for example, using the useradd command. Jira:RHELPLAN-149091 Support for 64-bit ARM for .vhd images built with image builder Previously, Microsoft Azure .vhd images created with the image builder tool were not supported on 64-bit ARM architectures. This update adds support for 64-bit ARM Microsoft Azure .vhd images and now you can build your .vhd images using image builder and upload them to the Microsoft Azure cloud. Jira:RHELPLAN-139424 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. Bugzilla:1932480 4.2. RHEL for Edge Ignition support in RHEL for Edge Simplified images With this enhancement, you can add an Ignition file to the Simplified Installer images by customizing your blueprint. Both GUI and CLI have support for the Ignition customization. RHEL for Edge uses the Ignition provisioning utility to inject the user configuration into the images at an early stage of the boot process. On the first boot, Ignition reads its configuration either from a remote URL or a file embedded in the Simplified Installer image and applies that configuration into the image. Jira:RHELPLAN-139659 Simplified Installer images can now be composed without the FDO customization section in the blueprint Previously, to build a RHEL for Edge Simplified Installer image, you had to add details to the FIDO device onboarding (FDO) customization section. Otherwise, the image build would fail. With this update, the FDO customization in blueprints is now optional, and you can build RHEL for Edge Simplified Installer image with no errors. Jira:RHELPLAN-139655 Red Hat build of MicroShift enablement for RHEL for Edge images With this enhancement, you can enable Red Hat build of MicroShift services in a RHEL for Edge system. By using the [[customizations.firewalld.zones]] blueprint customization, you can add support for firewalld sources in the blueprint customization. For that, specify a name for the zone and a list of sources in that specific zone. Sources can be of the form source[/mask]|MAC|ipset:ipset . The following is a blueprint example on how to configure and customize support for Red Hat build of MicroShift services in a RHEL for Edge system. The Red Hat build of MicroShift installation requirements, such as firewall policies, MicroShift RPM, systemd service, enable you to create a deployment ready for production to achieve workload portability to a minimum field deployed edge device and by default LVM device mapper enablement. Jira:RHELPLAN-136489 4.3. Software management New dnf offline-upgrade command for offline updates on RHEL With this enhancement, you can apply offline updates to RHEL by using the new dnf offline-upgrade command from the DNF system-upgrade plug-in. Important The dnf system-upgrade command included in the system-upgrade plug-in is not supported on RHEL. Bugzilla:2131288 Applying advisory security filters to dnf offline-upgrade is now supported With this enhancement, the new functionality for advisories filtering has been added. As a result, you can now download packages and their dependencies only from the specified advisory by using the dnf offline-upgrade command with advisory security filters ( --advisory , --security , --bugfix , and other filters). Bugzilla:2139326 The unload_plugins function is now available for the DNF API With this enhancement, a new unload_plugins function has been added to the DNF API to allow plug-ins unloading. Important Note that you must first run the init_plugins function, and then run the unload_plugins function. Bugzilla:2121662 New --nocompression option for rpm2archive With this enhancement, the --nocompression option has been added to the rpm2archive utility. You can use this option to avoid compression when directly unpacking an RPM package. Bugzilla:2150804 4.4. Shells and command-line tools ReaR is now fully supported also on the 64-bit IBM Z architecture Basic Relax and Recover (ReaR) functionality, previously available on the 64-bit IBM Z architecture as a Technology Preview, is fully supported with the rear package version 2.6-17.el9 or later. You can create a ReaR rescue image on the IBM Z architecture in the z/VM environment only. Backing up and recovering logical partitions (LPARs) is not supported at the moment. ReaR supports saving and restoring disk layout only on Extended Count Key Data (ECKD) direct access storage devices (DASDs). Fixed Block Access (FBA) DASDs and SCSI disks attached through Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) are not supported for this purpose. The only output method currently available is Initial Program Load (IPL), which produces a kernel and an initial ramdisk (initrd) compatible with the zIPL bootloader. For more information, see Using a ReaR rescue image on the 64-bit IBM Z architecture . Bugzilla:2046653 systemd rebased to version 252 The systemd package has been upgraded to version 252. Notable changes include: You can specify the default timeout when waiting for device units to activate by using the DefaultDeviceTimeoutSec= option in system.conf and user.conf files. At shutdown, systemd now logs about processes blocking unmounting of file systems. You can now use drop-ins for transient units too. You can use size suffixes, such as K, M, G, T and others in the ConditionMemory= option. You can list automount points by using the systemctl list-automounts command. You can use the systemd-logind utility to stop an idle session after a preconfigured timeout by using the StopIdleSessionSec= option. The systemd-udev utility now creates the infiniband by-path and infiniband by-ibdev links for Infiniband verbs devices. The systemd-tmpfiles utility now gracefully handles the absent source of C copy. The systemd-repart utility now generates dm-verity partitions, including signatures. Bugzilla:2217931 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 . You can define custom naming rules for naming InfiniBand interfaces by following the Renaming IPoIB devices procedure. For more details of the naming scheme, see the systemd.net-naming-scheme(7) man page. Bugzilla:2136937 4.5. Infrastructure services chrony rebased to version 4.3 The chrony suite has been updated to version 4.3. Notable enhancements over version 4.2 include: Added long-term quantile-based filtering of Network Time Protocol (NTP) measurements. You can enable this feature by adding the maxdelayquant option to the pool , server , or peer directive. Added the selection log to provide more information about chronyd selection of sources. You can enable the selection log by adding the selection option to the log directive. Improved synchronization stability when using the hardware timestamping and Pulse-Per-Second Hardware Clock (PHC) reference clocks. Added support for the system clock stabilization using a free-running stable clock, for example, Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO), Oven-Controlled Crystal Oscillator (OCXO), or an atomic clock. Increased the maximum polling rate to 128 messages per second. Bugzilla:2133754 frr rebased to version 8.3.1 The frr package for managing dynamic routing stack has been updated to version 8.3.1. Notable changes over version 8.2.2 include: Added a new set of commands to interact with the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP): the set as-path replace command to replace the Autonomous System (AS) path attribute of a BGP route with a new value. the match peer command to match a specific BGP peer or group when configuring a BGP route map. the ead-es-frag evi-limit command to set a limit on the number of Ethernet A-D per EVI fragments that can be sent in a given period of time in EVPN. the match evpn route-type command to take specific actions on certain types of EVPN routes, such as route-target, route-distinguisher, or MAC/IP routes. Added the show thread timers command in the VTYSH command-line interface for interacting with FRR daemons. Added the show ip ospf reachable-routers command to display a list of routers that are currently reachable through the OSPF protocol. Added new commands to interact with the Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) daemon: the debug igmp trace detail command to enable debugging for Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) messages with detailed tracing. the ip pim passive command to to configure the interface as passive, not sending PIM messages. Added new outputs for the show zebra command, such as ECMP, EVPN, MPLS statuses. Added the show ip nht mrib command to the ZEBRA component to display multicast-related information from the mroute table in the kernel. Bugzilla:2129731 vsftpd rebased to version 3.0.5 The Very Secure FTP Daemon ( vsftpd ) provides a secure method of transferring files between hosts. The vsftpd package has been updated to version 3.0.5. Notable changes and enhancements include the following SSL modernizations: By default, the vsftpd utility now requires the use of TLS version 1.2 or later for secure connections. The vsftpd utility is now compatible with the latest FileZilla client. Bugzilla:2018284 The frr package now contains targeted SELinux policy Due to the fast development of the frr package for managing dynamic routing stack, new features and access vector cache (AVC) issues arose frequently. With this enhancement, the SELinux rules are now packaged together with FRR to address any issues faster. SELinux adds an additional level of protection to the package by enforcing mandatory access control policies. Bugzilla:2129743 powertop rebased to version 2.15 The powertop package for improving the energy efficiency has been updated to version 2.15. Notable changes and enhancements include: Several Valgrind errors and possible buffer overrun have been fixed to improve the powertop tool stability. Improved compatibility with Ryzen processors and Kaby Lake platforms. Enabled Lake Field, Alder Lake N, and Raptor Lake platforms support. Enabled Ice Lake NNPI and Meteor Lake mobile and desktop support. Bugzilla:2044132 The systemd-sysusers utility is available in the chrony , dhcp , radvd , and squid packages The systemd-sysusers utility creates system users and groups during package installation and removes them during a removal of the package. With this enhancement, the following packages contain the systemd-sysusers utility in their scriptlets: chrony , dhcp , radvd , squid . Jira:RHELPLAN-136485 New synce4l package for frequency synchronization is now available SyncE (Synchronous Ethernet) is a hardware feature that enables PTP clocks to achieve precise synchronization of frequency at the physical layer. SyncE is supported in certain network interface cards (NICs) and network switches. With this enhancement, the new synce4l package is now available, which provides support for SyncE. As a result, Telco Radio Access Network (RAN) applications can now achieve more efficient communication due to more accurate time synchronization. Bugzilla:2143264 tuned rebased to version 2.20.0 The TuneD utility for optimizing the performance of applications and workloads has been updated to version 2.20.0. Notable changes and enhancements over version 2.19.0 include: An extension of API enables you to move devices between plug-in instances at runtime. The plugin_cpu module, which provides fine-tuning of CPU-related performance settings, introduces the following enhancements: The pm_qos_resume_latency_us feature enables you to limit the maximum time allowed for each CPU to transition from an idle state to an active state. TuneD adds support for the intel_pstate scaling driver, which provides scaling algorithms to tune the systems' power management based on different usage scenarios. The socket API to control TuneD through a Unix domain socket is now available as a Technology Preview. See Socket API for TuneD available as a Technology Preview for more information. Bugzilla:2133815 , Bugzilla:2113925 , Bugzilla:2118786 , Bugzilla:2095829 4.6. Security Libreswan rebased to 4.9 The libreswan packages have been upgraded to version 4.9. Notable changes over the version include: Support for the {left,right}pubkey= options to the addconn and whack utilities KDF self-tests Show host's authentication key ( showhostkey ): Support for ECDSA public keys New --pem option to print PEM encoded public key The Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2): Extensible Authentication Protocol - Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) support EAP-only Authentication support The pluto IKE daemon: Support for maxbytes and maxpacket counters Bugzilla:2128669 OpenSSL rebased to 3.0.7 The OpenSSL packages have been rebased to version 3.0.7, which contains various bug fixes and enhancements. Most notably, the default provider now includes the RIPEMD160 hash function. Bugzilla:2129063 libssh now supports smart cards You can now use smart cards through Public-Key Cryptography Standard (PKCS) #11 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). As a result, you can use smart cards with the libssh SSH library and with applications that use libssh . Bugzilla:2026449 libssh rebased to 0.10.4 The libssh library, which implements the SSH protocol for secure remote access and file transfer between machines, has been updated to version 0.10.4. New features: Support for OpenSSL 3.0 has been added. Support for smart cards has been added. Two new configuration options IdentityAgent and ModuliFile have been added. Other notable changes include: OpenSSL versions older than 1.0.1 are no longer supported By default, Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) support has been disabled at build time. The SCP API has been deprecated. The pubkey and privatekey APIs have been deprecated. Bugzilla:2068475 SELinux user-space packages updated to 3.5 The SELinux user-space packages libselinux , libsepol , libsemanage , checkpolicy , mcstrans , and policycoreutils , which includes the sepolicy utility, have been updated to version 3.5. Notable enhancements and bug fixes include: The sepolicy utility: Added missing booleans to man pages Several Python and GTK updates Added a workaround to libselinux that reduces heap memory usage by the PCRE2 library The libsepol package: Rejects attributes in type AV rules for kernel policies No longer writes empty class definitions, which allows simpler round-trip tests Stricter policy validation The fixfiles script unmounts temporary bind mounts on the SIGINT signal Many code and spelling bugs fixed Removed dependency on the deprecated Python module distutils and the installation using PIP The semodule option --rebuild-if-modules-changed renamed to --refresh Translation updated for generated descriptions and improved handling of unsupported languages Fixed many static code analysis bugs, fuzzer problems, and compiler warnings Bugzilla:2145224 , Bugzilla:2145228 , Bugzilla:2145229 , Bugzilla:2145226 , Bugzilla:2145230 , Bugzilla:2145231 OpenSCAP rebased to 1.3.7 The OpenSCAP packages have been rebased to upstream version 1.3.7. This version provides various bug fixes and enhancements, most notably: Fixed error when processing OVAL filters ( RHBZ#2126882 ) OpenSCAP no longer emits invalid empty xmlfilecontent items if XPath does not match ( RHBZ#2139060 ) Prevented Failed to check available memory errors ( RHBZ#2111040 ) Bugzilla:2159286 SCAP Security Guide rebased to 0.1.66 The SCAP Security Guide (SSG) packages have been rebased to upstream version 0.1.66. This version provides various enhancements and bug fixes, most notably: New CIS RHEL9 profiles Deprecation of rule account_passwords_pam_faillock_audit in favor of accounts_passwords_pam_faillock_audit Bugzilla:2158405 New SCAP rule for idle session termination New SCAP rule logind_session_timeout has been added to the scap-security-guide package in ANSSI-BP-028 profiles for Enhanced and High levels. This rule uses a new feature of the systemd service manager and terminates idle user sessions after a certain time. This rule provides automatic configuration of a robust idle session termination mechanism which is required by multiple security policies. As a result, OpenSCAP can automatically check the security requirement related to terminating idle user sessions and, if necessary, remediate it. Bugzilla:2122325 scap-security-guide rules for Rsyslog log files are compatible with RainerScript logs Rules in scap-security-guide for checking and remediating ownership, group ownership, and permissions of Rsyslog log files are now also compatible with the RainerScript syntax. Modern systems already use the RainerScript syntax in Rsyslog configuration files and the respective rules were not able to recognize this syntax. As a result, scap-security-guide rules can now check and remediate ownership, group ownership, and permissions of Rsyslog log files in both available syntaxes. Bugzilla:2169414 Keylime rebased to 6.5.2 The keylime packages have been rebased to upstream version - keylime-6.5.2-5.el9. This version contains various enhancements and bug fixes, most notably the following: Addressed vulnerability CVE-2022-3500 The Keylime agent no longer fails IMA attestation when one scripts is executed quickly after another RHBZ#2138167 Fixed segmentation fault in the /usr/share/keylime/create_mb_refstate script RHBZ#2140670 Registrar no longer crashes during EK validation when the require_ek_cert option is enabled RHBZ#2142009 Bugzilla:2150830 Clevis accepts external tokens With the new -e option introduced to the Clevis automated encryption tool, you can provide an external token ID to avoid entering your password during cryptsetup . This feature makes the configuration process more automated and convenient, and is useful particularly for packages such as stratis that use Clevis. Bugzilla:2126533 Rsyslog TLS-encrypted logging now supports multiple CA files With the new NetstreamDriverCaExtraFiles directive, you can specify a list of additional certificate authority (CA) files for TLS-encrypted remote logging. Note that the new directive is available only for the ossl (OpenSSL) Rsyslog network stream driver. Bugzilla:2124849 Rsyslog privileges are limited The privileges of the Rsyslog log processing system are now limited to only the privileges explicitly required by Rsyslog. This minimizes security exposure in case of a potential error in input resources, for example, a networking plugin. As a result, Rsyslog has the same functionality but does not have unnecessary privileges. Bugzilla:2127404 SELinux policy allows Rsyslog to drop privileges at start Because the privileges of the Rsyslog log processing system are now more limited to minimize security exposure ( RHBZ#2127404 ), the SELinux policy has been updated to allow the rsyslog service to drop privileges at start. Bugzilla:2151841 Tang now uses systemd-sysusers The Tang network presence server now adds system users and groups through the systemd-sysusers service instead of shell scripts containing useradd commands. This simplifies checking of the system user list, and you can also override definitions of system users by providing sysuser.d files with higher priority. Bugzilla:2095474 opencryptoki rebased to 3.19.0 The opencryptoki package has been rebased to version 3.19.0, which provides many enhancements and bug fixes. Most notably, opencryptoki now supports the following features: IBM-specific Dilithium keys Dual-function cryptographic functions Cancelling active session-based operations by using the new C_SessionCancel function, as described in the PKCS #11 Cryptographic Token Interface Base Specification v3.0 Schnorr signatures through the CKM_IBM_ECDSA_OTHER mechanism Bitcoin key derivation through the CKM_IBM_BTC_DERIVE mechanism EP11 tokens in IBM z16 systems Bugzilla:2110314 SELinux now confines mptcpd and udftools With this update of the selinux-policy packages, SELinux confines the following services: mptcpd udftools Bugzilla:1972222 fapolicyd now provides filtering of the RPM database With the new configuration file /etc/fapolicyd/rpm-filter.conf , you can customize the list of RPM-database files that the fapolicyd software framework stores in the trust database. This way, you can block certain applications installed by RPM or allow an application denied by the default configuration filter. Jira:RHEL-192 GnuTLS can add and remove padding during decryption and encryption The implementation of certain protocols requires PKCS#7 padding during decryption and encryption. The gnutls_cipher_encrypt3 and gnutls_cipher_decrypt3 block cipher functions have been added to GnuTLS to transparently handle padding. As a result, you can now use these functions in combination with the GNUTLS_CIPHER_PADDING_PKCS7 flag to automatically add or remove padding if the length of the original plaintext is not a multiple of the block size. Bugzilla:2084161 NSS no longer support RSA keys shorter than 1023 bits The update of the Network Security Services (NSS) libraries changes the minimum key size for all RSA operations from 128 to 1023 bits. This means that NSS no longer perform the following functions: Generate RSA keys shorter than 1023 bits. Sign or verify RSA signatures with RSA keys shorter than 1023 bits. Encrypt or decrypt values with RSA key shorter than 1023 bits. Bugzilla:2091905 The Extended Master Secret TLS Extension is now enforced on FIPS-enabled systems With the release of the RHSA-2023:3722 advisory, the TLS Extended Master Secret (EMS) extension (RFC 7627) is mandatory for TLS 1.2 connections on FIPS-enabled RHEL 9 systems. This is in accordance with FIPS-140-3 requirements. TLS 1.3 is not affected. Legacy clients that do not support EMS or TLS 1.3 now cannot connect to FIPS servers running on RHEL 9. Similarly, RHEL 9 clients in FIPS mode cannot connect to servers that only support TLS 1.2 without EMS. This in practice means that these clients cannot connect to servers on RHEL 6, RHEL 7 and non-RHEL legacy operating systems. This is because the legacy 1.0.x versions of OpenSSL do not support EMS or TLS 1.3. In addition, connecting from a FIPS-enabled RHEL client to a hypervisor such as VMWare ESX now fails with a Provider routines::ems not enabled error if the hypervisor uses TLS 1.2 without EMS. To work around this problem, update the hypervisor to support TLS 1.3 or TLS 1.2 with the EMS extension. For VMWare vSphere, this means version 8.0 or later. For more information, see TLS Extension "Extended Master Secret" enforced with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 . Bugzilla:2188046 , Bugzilla:2218721 4.7. Networking NetworkManager rebased to version 1.42.2 The NetworkManager packages have been upgraded to upstream version 1.42.2, which provides a number of enhancements and bug fixes over the version: Ethernet bonds support source load balancing. NetworkManager can manage connections on the loopback device. Support for IPv4 equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) routes was added. Support for 802.1ad tagging in Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) connections was added. The nmtui application supports Wi-Fi WPA-Enterprise, Ethernet with 802.1X authentication, and MACsec connection profiles. NetworkManager rejects DHCPv6 leases if all addresses fail IPv6 duplicate address detection (DAD). For further information about notable changes, read the upstream release notes . Bugzilla:2134897 Introduction of the weight property in ECMP routing with NetworkManager With this update, RHEL 9 supports a new property weight when defining IPv4 Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routes. You can configure multipath routing using NetworkManager to load-balance and stabilize network traffic. This allows for multiple paths to be used for data transmission between two nodes, which improves the network efficiency and provides redundancy in the event of a link failure. Conditions for using the weight property include: The valid values are 1-256. Define multiple -hop routes as single-hop routes with the weight property. If you do not set weight , NetworkManager cannot merge the routes into an ECMP route. Bugzilla:2081302 NetworkManager update brings improved flexibility for DNS configuration across multiple networks With this update, you can use the existing [global-dns] section in the /etc/Networkmanager/NetworkManager.conf file to configure DNS options without specifying the nameserver value in the [global-dns-domain-*] section. This enables you to configure DNS options in the /etc/resolv.conf file while still relying on the DNS servers provided by the network connection for actual DNS resolution. As a result, the feature makes it easier and more flexible to manage your DNS settings when connecting to different networks with different DNS servers. Especially when you use the /etc/resolv.conf file to configure DNS options. Bugzilla:2019306 NetworkManager now supports a new vlan.protocol property With this update, the vlan interface type now accepts a new protocol property. The property type is string. The accepted values are either 802.1Q (default), or 802.1ad . The new property specifies which VLAN protocol controls the tag identifier for encapsulation. Bugzilla:2128809 NetworkManager now allows VLAN configuration over unmanaged interface With this enhancement, you can use an unmanaged networking interface as a base interface when configuring virtual LAN (VLAN) with NetworkManager. As a result, the VLAN base interface remains intact unless changed explicitly through the nmcli device set enp1s0 managed true command or other API of NetworkManager. Bugzilla:2110307 Configuring Multipath TCP using NetworkManager is now fully supported With this update, the NetworkManager utility provides you with the Multipath TCP (MPTCP) functionality. You can use nmcli commands to control MPTCP and make its settings persistent. For more information, see: Understanding Multipath TCP: High availability for endpoints and the networking highway of the future RFC 8684: TCP Extensions for Multipath Operation with Multiple Addresses Permanently configuring multiple paths for MPTCP applications Bugzilla:2029636 The NetworkManager utility now supports activating connections on the loopback interface Administrators can manage the loopback interface to: Add extra IP addresses to the loopback interface Define DNS configuration Define a special route, which does not bind to an interface Define a route rule, which is not interface-related Change Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size of the loopback interface Bugzilla:2073512 The balance-slb bonding mode is now supported The new balance-slb bonding mode Source load balancing requires no switch configuration. The balance-slb divides traffic on the source ethernet address using xmit_hash_policy = vlan+srcmac , and NetworkManager adds necessary nftables rules for traffic filtering. As a result, you can now create bond profiles with the balance-slb option enabled by using NetworkManager. Bugzilla:2128216 firewalld rebased to version 1.2 The firewalld package has been upgraded to version 1.2, which provides multiple enhancements. Notable changes include: Support for new services (for example netdata, IPFS) Fail-safe mode to ensure that the system remains protected and that network communication is not disrupted if the firewalld service encounters an error during its startup Tab-completion in command-line (CLI) for some of the firewalld policy commands Bugzilla:2125371 The firewalld now supports the startup failsafe mechanism With this enhancement, firewalld will fall back to failsafe defaults in case of a startup failure. This feature protects the host in case of invalid configurations or other startup issues. As a result, even if the user configuration is invalid, hosts running firewalld are now startup failsafe. Bugzilla:2077512 conntrack-tools rebased to version 1.4.7 The conntrack-tools package has been upgraded to version 1.4.7, which provides multiple bug fixes and enhancements. Notable changes include: Adds the IPS_HW_OFFLOAD flag, which specifies offloading of a conntrack entry to the hardware Adds clash_resolve and chaintoolong statistical counters Supports filtering events by IP address family Accepts yes or no as synonyms to on or off in the conntrackd.conf file Supports user space helper auto-loading upon daemon startup. Users do not have to manually run the nfct add helper commands Removes the -o userspace command option and always tags user space triggered events Logs external inject problems as warning only Ignores conntrack ID when looking up cache entries to allow for stuck old ones to be replaced Fixes broken parsing of IPv6 M-SEARCH requests in the ssdp cthelper module Eliminates the need for lazy binding technique in the nfct library Sanitizes protocol value parsing, catch invalid values Bugzilla:2132398 The nmstate API now supports IPv6 link-local addresses as DNS servers With this enhancement, you can use the nmstate API to set IPv6 link-local addresses as DNS servers. Use the <link-local_address>%<interface> format, for example: Bugzilla:2095207 The nmstate API now supports MPTCP flags This update enhances the nmstate API with support for MultiPath TCP (MPTCP) flags. As a result, you can use nmstate to set MPTCP address flags on interfaces with static or dynamic IP addresses. Bugzilla:2120473 The min-mtu and max-mtu properties added to MTU on all interfaces Previously, an exception message was not clear enough to understand the supported MTU ranges. This update introduces the min-mtu and max-mtu properties to all interfaces. As a result, nmstate will indicate the supported MTU range when the desired MTU is out of range. Bugzilla:2044150 NetworkManager now allows VLAN configuration over unmanaged interface With this enhancement, you can use an unmanaged networking interface as a base interface when configuring virtual LAN (VLAN) with NetworkManager. As a result, the VLAN base interface remains intact unless changed explicitly through the nmcli device set enp1s0 managed true command or other API of NetworkManager. Bugzilla:2058292 The balance-slb bonding mode is now supported The new balance-slb bonding mode Source load balancing requires no switch configuration. The balance-slb divides traffic on the source Ethernet address using xmit_hash_policy = vlan+srcmac , and NetworkManager adds necessary nftables rules for traffic filtering. As a result, you can now create bond profiles with the balance-slb option enabled by using NetworkManager. Bugzilla:2130240 A new weight property in Nmstate This update introduces the weight property in the Nmstate API and tooling suite. You can use weight to specify the relative weight of each path in the Equal Cost Multi-Path routes (ECMP) group. The weight is a number between 1 and 256. As a result, weight property in Nmstate provides greater flexibility and control over traffic distribution in an ECMP group. Bugzilla:2162401 xdp-tools rebased to version 1.3.1 The xdp-tools packages have been upgraded to upstream version 1.3.1, which provides a number of enhancements and bug fixes over the version: The following utilities have been added: xdp-bench : Performs XDP benchmarks on the receive side. xdp-monitor : Monitors XDP errors and statistics using kernel trace points. xdp-trafficgen : Generates and sends traffic through the XDP driver hook. The following features have been added to the libxdp library: The xdp_multiprog__xdp_frags_support() , xdp_program__set_xdp_frags_support() , and xdp_program__xdp_frags_support() functions have been added to support loading programs with XDP frags support, a feature that is also known as multibuffer XDP . The library performs proper reference counting when attaching programs to AF_XDP sockets. As a result, the application no longer has to manually detach XDP programs when using sockets. The libxdp library detaches the program now automatically when the program is no longer used. The following functions have been added to the library: xdp_program__create() for creating xdp_program objects xdp_program__clone() for cloning an xdp_program reference xdp_program__test_run() for running XDP programs through the BPF_PROG_TEST_RUN kernel API When the LIBXDP_BPFFS_AUTOMOUNT environment variable is set, the libxdp library now supports automatically mounting of a bpffs virtual file system if none is found. A subset of the library features can now also function when no bpffs is mounted. Note that this version also changes the version number of the XDP dispatcher program that is being loaded on the network devices. This means that you can not use a and a new version of libxdp and xdp-tools at the same time. The libxdp 1.3 library will display old versions of the dispatcher, but not automatically upgrade them. Additionally, after loading a program with libxdp 1.3, older versions will not interoperate with the newer one. Bugzilla:2160066 iproute rebased to version 6.1.0 The iproute package has been upgraded to version 6.1.0, which provides multiple bug fixes and enhancements. Notable changes include: Supports reading the vdpa device statistics Illustration of statistics reading for the virtqueue data structure at index 1: Illustration of statistics reading for the virtqueue data structure at index 16: Updates the corresponding manual pages Bugzilla:2155604 The kernel now logs the listening address in SYN flood messages This enhancement adds the listening IP address to SYN flood messages: As a result, if many processes are bound to the same port on different IP addresses, administrators can now clearly identify the affected socket. Bugzilla:2143850 Introduction of new nmstate attributes for the VLAN interface With this update of the nmstate framework, the following VLAN attributes were introduced: registration-protocol : VLAN Registration Protocol. The valid values are gvrp (GARP VLAN Registration Protocol), mvrp (Multiple VLAN Registration Protocol), and none . reorder-headers : reordering of output packet headers. The valid values are true and false . loose-binding : loose binding of the interface to the operating state of its primary device. The valid values are true and false . Your YAML configuration file can look similar to the following example: Jira:RHEL-19142 4.8. Kernel Kernel version in RHEL 9.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 is distributed with the kernel version 5.14.0-284.11.1. Bugzilla:2177782 The 64k page size kernel is now available In addition to the RHEL 9 for ARM kernel which supports 4k pages, Red Hat now offers an optional kernel package that supports 64k pages: kernel-64k . The 64k page size kernel is a useful option for large datasets on ARM platforms. It enables better performance for some types of memory- and CPU-intensive operations. You must choose page size on 64-bit ARM architecture systems at the time of installation. You can install kernel-64k only by Kickstart by adding the kernel-64k package to the package list in the Kickstart file. For more information on installing kernel-64k , see Automatically installing RHEL . Bugzilla:2153073 virtiofs support for kexec-tools enabled This enhancement adds the virtiofs feature for kexec-tools by introducing the new option, virtiofs myfs , where myfs is a variable tag name to set in the qemu command line, for example, -device vhost-user-fs-pci,tag=myfs The virtiofs file system implements a driver that allows a guest to mount a directory that has been exported on the host. By using this enhancement, you can save the virtual machine's vmcore dump file to: A virtiofs shared directory. The sub-directory, such as /var/crash , when the root file system is a virtiofs shared directory. A different virtiofs shared directory, when the virtual machine's root file system is a virtiofs shared directory. Bugzilla:2085347 The kexec-tools package now adds improvements on remote kdump targets With this enhancement, the kexec-tools package adds significant bug fixes and enhancements. The most notable changes include: Optimized memory consumption for kdump by enabling only the required network interfaces. Improved network efficiency for kdump in events of connection timeout failures. The default wait time for a network to establish is 10 minutes maximum. This removes the need to pass dracut parameters, such as rd.net.timeout.carrier or rd.net.timeout.dhcp as a workaround to identify a carrier. Bugzilla:2076416 BPF rebased to version 6.0 The Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) facility has been rebased to Linux kernel version 6.0 with multiple enhancements. This update enables all the BPF features that depend on the BPF Type Format (BTF) for kernel modules. Such features include the usage of BPF trampolines for tracing, the availability of the Compile Once - Run Everywhere (CO-RE) mechanism, and several networking-related features. Furthermore, the kernel modules now contain debugging information, which means that you no longer need to install debuginfo packages to inspect the running modules. For more information on the complete list of BPF features available in the running kernel, use the bpftool feature command. Jira:RHELPLAN-133650 The rtla meta-tool adds the osnoise and timerlat tracers for improved tracing capabilities The Real-Time Linux Analysis ( rtla ) is a meta-tool that includes a set of commands that analyze the real-time properties of Linux. rtla leverages kernel tracing capabilities to provide precise information about the properties and root causes of unexpected system results. rtla currently adds support for osnoise and timerlat tracer commands: The osnoise tracer reports information about operating system noise. The timerlat tracer periodically prints the timer latency at the timer IRQ handler and the thread handler. Note that to use the timerlat feature of rtla , you must disable admission control by using the sysctl -w kernel.sched_rt_runtime_us=-1 script. Bugzilla:2075216 The argparse module of Tuna now supports configuring CPU sockets With this enhancement, you can specify a specific CPU socket when you have multiple CPU sockets. You can view the help usage by using the -h on a subcommand, for example, tuna show_threads -h . To configure a specific CPU socket, specify the -S option with each tuna command where you need to use CPU sockets: For example, use tuna show_threads -S 2,3 to view the threads or tuna show_irqs -S 2,3 to view attached interrupt requests (IRQs). As a result, this enhancement facilitates CPU usage based on CPU sockets without the need to specify each CPU individually. Bugzilla:2122781 The output format for cgroups and irqs in Tuna is improved to provide better readability With this enhancement, the tuna show_threads command output for the cgroup utility is now structured based on the terminal size. You can also configure additional spacing to the cgroups output by adding the new -z or --spaced option to the show_threads command. As a result, the cgroups output now has an improved readable format that is adaptable to your terminal size. Bugzilla:2121517 A new command line interface has been added to the tuna tool in real-time This enhancement adds a new command line interface to the tuna tool, which is based on the argparse parsing module. With this update, you can now perform the following tasks: Change the attributes of the application and kernel threads. Operate on interrupt requests (IRQs) by name or number. Operate on tasks or threads by using the process identifier. Specify CPUs and sets of CPUs with the CPU or the socket number. By using the tuna -h command, you can print the command line arguments and their corresponding options. For each command, there are optional arguments, which you can view with the tuna <command> -h command. As a result, tuna now provides an interface with a more standardized menu of commands and options that is easier to use and maintain than the command line interface. Bugzilla:2062865 The rteval command output now includes the program loads and measurement threads information The rteval command now displays a report summary with the number of program loads, measurement threads, and the corresponding CPU that ran these threads. This information helps to evaluate the performance of a real-time kernel under load on specific hardware platforms. The rteval report is written to an XML file along with the boot log for the system and saved to the rteval-<date>-N-tar.bz2 compressed file. The date specifies the report generation date and N is the counter for the Nth run. To generate an rteval report, enter the following command: Bugzilla:2081325 The -W and --bucket-width options has been added to the oslat program to measure latency With this enhancement, you can specify a latency range for a single bucket at nanoseconds accuracy. Widths that are not multiples of 1000 nanoseconds indicate nanosecond precision. By using the new options, -W or --bucket-width , you can modify the latency interval between buckets to measure latency within sub-microseconds delay time. For example to set a latency bucket width of 100 nanoseconds for 32 buckets over a duration of 10 seconds to run on CPU range of 1-4 and omit zero bucket size, run the following command: Note that before using the option, you must determine what level of precision is significant in relation to the error measurement. Bugzilla:2041637 The NVMe/FC transport protocol enabled as the kdump storage target The kdump mechanism now provides the support for Nonvolatile Memory Express (NVMe) over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) protocol as the dump target. With this update, you can configure kdump to save kernel crash dump files on NVMe/FC storage targets. As a result, kdump can capture and save the vmcore file on NVMe/FC in the event of a kernel crash without timeout or reconnect errors. For more information on NVMe/FC configuration, see Managing storage devices Bugzilla:2080110 The crash-utility tool has been rebased to version 8.0.2 The crash-utility , which analyzes an active system state or after a kernel crash, has been rebased to version 8.0.2. The notable change includes adding support for multiqueue(blk-mq) devices. By using the dev -d or dev -D command, you can display the disk I/O statistics for multiqueue(blk-mq) devices. Bugzilla:2119685 openssl-ibmca rebased to version 2.3.1 The dynamic OpenSSL engine and provider for IBMCA on 64-bit IBM Z architecture have been rebased to upstream version 2.3.1. Users of RHEL 9 are recommended to use the OpenSSL provider to ensure compatibility with future updates of OpenSSL. The engine functionality has been deprecated in OpenSSL version 3. Bugzilla:2110378 Secure Execution guest dump encryption with customer keys This new feature allows hypervisor-initiated dumps for Secure Execution guests to collect kernel crash information from KVM in scenarios in which the kdump utility does not work. Note that hypervisor-initiated dumps for Secure Execution is designed for the IBM Z Series z16 and LinuxONE Emperor 4 hardware. Bugzilla:2044204 The TSN protocol for real-time has been enabled on the ADL-S platform With this enhancement, the IEEE Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) specification enables time synchronization and deterministic processing of real-time workloads over the network on Intel Alder Lake S (ADL-S) platform. It supports the following network devices: A discrete 2.5GbE MAC-PHY combo with TSN support: Intel(R) i225/i226 An integrated 2.5GbE MAC in the SOC with 3rd party PHY chips from Marvell, Maxlinear and TI covering the 1GbE and 2.5Gbe speed, is available on select skus and SOCs. With the TSN protocol, you can manage deterministic applications scheduling, preemption, and accurate time synchronization type workloads in embedded implementations. These implementations need dedicated, specialized, and proprietary networks, while workloads run on standard Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 5G networks. As a result, TSN provides improved capabilities for: Hardware: Intel based systems used for implementing real-time workloads in IoT Deterministic and time sensitive applications Bugzilla:2100606 The Intel ice driver rebased to version 6.0.0 The Intel ice driver has been upgraded to upstream version 6.0.0, which provides a number of enhancements and bug fixes over versions. The notable enhancements include: Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet ( PPPoE ) protocol hardware offload Inter-Integrated Circuit ( I2C ) protocol write command VLAN Tag Protocol Identifier ( TPID ) filters in the Ethernet switch device driver model ( switchdev ) Double VLAN tagging in switchdev Bugzilla:2104468 Option to write data for gnss module is now available This update provides the option of writing data to the gnss receiver. Previously, gnss was not fully configurable. With this enhancement, all gnss functions are now available. Bugzilla:2111048 Hosting Secure Boot certificates for IBM zSystems Starting with IBM z16 A02/AGZ and LinuxONE Rockhopper 4 LA2/AGL, you can manage certificates used to validate Linux kernels when starting the system with Secure Boot enabled on the Hardware Management Console (HMC). Notably: You can load certificates in a system certificate store using the HMC in DPM and classic mode from an FTP server that can be accessed by the HMC. It is also possible to load certificates from a USB device attached to the HMC. You can associate certificates stored in the certificate store with an LPAR partition. Multiple certificates can be associated with a partition and a certificate can be associated with multiple partitions. You can de-associate certificates in the certificate store from a partition by using HMC interfaces. You can remove certificates from the certificate store. You can associate up to 20 certificates with a partition. The built-in firmware certificates are still available. In particular, as soon as you use the user-managed certificate store, the built-in certificates will no longer be available. Certificate files loaded into the certificate store must meet the following requirements: They have the PEM- or DER-encoded X.509v3 format and one of the following filename extensions: .pem , .cer , .crt , or .der . They are not expired. The key usage attribute must be Digital Signature . The extended key usage attribute must contain Code Signing . A firmware interface allows a Linux kernel running in a logical partition to load the certificates associated with this partition. Linux on IBM Z stores these certificates in the .platform keyring, allowing the Linux kernel to verify kexec kernels and third party kernel modules to be verified using certificates associated with that partition. It is the responsibility of the operator to only upload verified certificates and to remove certificates that have been revoked. Note The Red Hat Secureboot 302 certificate that you need to load into the HMC is available at Product Signing Keys . Bugzilla:2190123 zipl support for Secure Boot IPL and dump on 64-bit IBM Z With this update, the zipl utility supports List-Directed IPL and List-Directed dump from Extended Count Key Data (ECKD) Direct Access Storage Devices (DASD) on the 64-bit IBM Z architecture. As a result, Secure Boot for RHEL on IBM Z also works with the ECKD type of DASDs. Bugzilla:2044200 rtla rebased to version 6.6 of the upstream kernel source code The rtla utility has been upgraded to the latest upstream version, which provides multiple bug fixes and enhancements. Notable changes include: Added the -C option to specify additional control groups for rtla threads to run in, apart from the main rtla thread. Added the --house-keeping option to place rtla threads on a housekeeping CPU and to put measurement threads on different CPUs. Added support to the timerlat tracer so that you can run timerlat hist and timerlat top threads in user space. Jira:RHEL-18359 4.9. File systems and storage nvme-cli rebased to version 2.2.1 The nvme-cli packages have been upgraded to version 2.2.1, which provide multiple bug fixes and enhancements. Notable changes include: Added the new nvme show-topology command, which displays the topology of all NVMe subsystems. Dropped the libuuid dependency. The uint128 data fields are displayed correctly. Updated the libnvme dependency to version 1.2. Bugzilla:2139753 libnvme rebased to version 1.2 The libnvme packages have been upgraded to version 1.2, which provide multiple bug fixes and enhancements. The most notable change is a dropped dependency of the libuuid library. Bugzilla:2139752 Stratis enforces consistent block size in pools Stratis now enforces a consistent block size in pools to address potential edge case problems that can occur when mixed block size devices exist within a pool. With this enhancement, users can no longer create a pool or add new devices that have a different block size from the existing devices in the pool. As a result, there is a reduced risk of pool failure. Bugzilla:2039957 Support for existing disk growth within the Stratis pool Previously, when a user added new disks to the RAID array, the size of the RAID array would generally increase. However, in all cases, Stratis ignored the increase in size and continued to use only the space that was available on the RAID array when it was first added to the pool. As a result, Stratis was unable to identify the new device, and users could not increase the size of the pool. With this enhancement, Stratis now identifies any pool device members that have expanded in size. As a result, users can now issue a command to expand the pool based on their requirements. Stratis now supports the growth of existing disks within its pool, in addition to the existing feature of growing the pool by adding new disks. Bugzilla:2039955 Improved functionality of the lvreduce command With this enhancement, when the logical volume (LV) is active, the lvreduce command checks if reducing the LV size would damage any file system present on it. If a file system on the LV requires reduction, and the lvreduce resizefs option has not been enabled, then the LV will not be reduced. Additionally, new options are now available to control the handling of file systems while reducing an LV. These options provide users with greater flexibility and control when using the lvreduce command. Bugzilla:1878893 Direct I/O alignment information for statx was added This update introduces a new mask value, "STATX_DIOALIGN" , to the statx(2) call. When this value is set in the stx_mask field, it requests stx_dio_mem_align and stx_dio_offset_align values, which indicate the required alignment (in bytes) for user memory buffers and file offsets and I/O segment lengths for direct I/O (O_DIRECT) on this file, respectively. If direct I/O is not supported on the file, both values will be 0. This interface is now implemented for block devices as well as for files on the xfs and ext4 filesystems in RHEL9. Bugzilla:2150284 NFSv4.1 session trunking discovery With this update, the client can use multiple connections to the same server and session, resulting in faster data transfer. When an NFS client mounts a multi-homed NFS server with different IP addresses, only one connection is used by default, ignoring the rest. To improve performance, this update adds support for the trunkdiscovery and max_connect mount options, which enable the client to test each connection and associate multiple connections with the same NFSv4.1+ server and session. Bugzilla:2066372 NFS IO sizes can now be set as a multiples of PAGE_SIZE for TCP and RDMA This update allows users to set NFS IO sizes as a multiples of PAGE_SIZE for TCP and RDMA connections. This offers greater flexibility in optimizing NFS performance for some architectures. Bugzilla:2107347 nfsrahead has been added to RHEL 9 With the introduction of the nfsrahead tool, you can use it to modify the readahead value for NFS mounts, and thus affect the NFS read performance. Bugzilla:2143747 4.10. High availability and clusters New enable-authfile Booth configuration option When you create a Booth configuration to use the Booth ticket manager in a cluster configuration, the pcs booth setup command now enables the new enable-authfile Booth configuration option by default. You can enable this option on an existing cluster with the pcs booth enable-authfile command. Additionally, the pcs status and pcs booth status commands now display warnings when they detect a possible enable-authfile misconfiguration. Bugzilla:2116295 pcs can now run the validate-all action of resource and stonith agents When creating or updating a resource or a STONITH device, you can now specify the --agent-validation option. With this option, pcs uses an agent's validate-all action, when it is available, in addition to the validation done by pcs based on the agent's metadata. Bugzilla:2112270 , Bugzilla:2159454 4.11. Dynamic programming languages, web and database servers Python 3.11 available in RHEL 9 RHEL 9.2 introduces Python 3.11, provided by the new package python3.11 and a suite of packages built for it, as well as the ubi9/python-311 container image. Notable enhancements compared to the previously released Python 3.9 include: Significantly improved performance. Structural Pattern Matching using the new match keyword (similar to switch in other languages). Improved error messages, for example, indicating unclosed parentheses or brackets. Exact line numbers for debugging and other use cases. Support for defining context managers across multiple lines by enclosing the definitions in parentheses. Various new features related to type hints and the typing module, such as the new X | Y type union operator, variadic generics, and the new Self type. Precise error locations in tracebacks pointing to the expression that caused the error. A new tomllib standard library module which supports parsing TOML. An ability to raise and handle multiple unrelated exceptions simultaneously using Exception Groups and the new except* syntax. Python 3.11 and packages built for it can be installed in parallel with Python 3.9 on the same system. To install packages from the python3.11 stack, use, for example: To run the interpreter, use, for example: See Installing and using Python for more information. Note that Python 3.11 will have a shorter life cycle than Python 3.9, which is the default Python implementation in RHEL 9; see Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle . Bugzilla:2127923 nodejs:18 rebased to version 18.14 with npm rebased to version 9 The updated Node.js 18.14 includes a SemVer major upgrade of npm from version 8 to version 9. This update was necessary due to maintenance reasons and may require you to adjust your npm configuration. Notably, auth-related settings that are not scoped to a specific registry are no longer supported. This change was made for security reasons. If you used unscoped authentication configurations, the supplied token was sent to every registry listed in the .npmrc file. If you use unscoped authentication tokens, generate and supply registry-scoped tokens in your .npmrc file. If you have configuration lines using _auth , such as //registry.npmjs.org/:_auth in your .npmrc files, replace them with //registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=USD{NPM_TOKEN} and supply the scoped token that you generated. For a complete list of changes, see the upstream changelog . Bugzilla:2178088 git rebased to version 2.39.1 The Git version control system has been updated to version 2.39.1, which provides bug fixes, enhancements, and performance improvements over the previously released version 2.31. Notable enhancements include: The git log command now supports a format placeholder for the git describe output: git log --format=%(describe) The git commit command now supports the --fixup<commit> option which enables you to fix the content of the commit without changing the log message. With this update, you can also use: The --fixup=amend:<commit> option to change both the message and the content. The --fixup=reword:<commit> option to update only the commit message. You can use the new --reject-shallow option with the git clone command to disable cloning from a shallow repository. The git branch command now supports the --recurse-submodules option. You can now use the git merge-tree command to: Test if two branches can merge. Compute a tree that would result in the merge commit if the branches were merged. You can use the new safe.bareRepository configuration variable to filter out bare repositories. Bugzilla:2139379 git-lfs rebased to version 3.2.0 The Git Large File Storage (LFS) extension has been updated to version 3.2.0, which provides bug fixes, enhancements, and performance improvements over the previously released version 2.13. Notable changes include: Git LFS introduces a pure SSH-based transport protocol. Git LFS now provides a merge driver. The git lfs fsck utility now additionally checks that pointers are canonical and that expected LFS files have the correct format. Support for the NT LAN Manager (NTLM) authentication protocol has been removed. Use Kerberos or Basic authentication instead. Bugzilla:2139383 A new module stream: nginx:1.22 The nginx 1.22 web and proxy server is now available as the nginx:1.22 module stream. This update provides a number of bug fixes, security fixes, new features, and enhancements over the previously released version 1.20. New features: nginx now supports: OpenSSL 3.0 and the SSL_sendfile() function when using OpenSSL 3.0. The PCRE2 library. POP3 and IMAP pipelining in the mail proxy module. nginx now passes the Auth-SSL-Protocol and Auth-SSL-Cipher header lines to the mail proxy authentication server. Enhanced directives: Multiple new directives are now available, such as ssl_conf_command and ssl_reject_handshake . The proxy_cookie_flags directive now supports variables. nginx now supports variables in the following directives: proxy_ssl_certificate , proxy_ssl_certificate_key , grpc_ssl_certificate , grpc_ssl_certificate_key , uwsgi_ssl_certificate , and uwsgi_ssl_certificate_key . The listen directive in the stream module now supports a new fastopen parameter, which enables TCP Fast Open mode for listening sockets. A new max_errors directive has been added to the mail proxy module. Other changes: nginx now always returns an error if: The CONNECT method is used. Both Content-Length and Transfer-Encoding headers are specified in the request. The request header name contains spaces or control characters. The Host request header line contains spaces or control characters. nginx now blocks all HTTP/1.0 requests that include the Transfer-Encoding header. nginx now establishes HTTP/2 connections using the Application Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) and no longer supports the Protocol Negotiation (NPN) protocol. To install the nginx:1.22 stream, use: For more information, see Setting up and configuring NGINX . For information about the length of support for the nginx module streams, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle . Bugzilla:2096174 mod_security rebased to version 2.9.6 The mod_security module for the Apache HTTP Server has been updated to version 2.9.6, which provides new features, bug fixes, and security fixes over the previously available version 2.9.3. Notable enhancements include: Adjusted parser activation rules in the modsecurity.conf-recommended file. Enhancements to the way mod_security parses HTTP multipart requests. Added a new MULTIPART_PART_HEADERS collection. Added microsec timestamp resolution to the formatted log timestamp. Added missing Geo Countries. Bugzilla:2143211 New packages: tomcat RHEL 9.2 introduces the Apache Tomcat server version 9. Tomcat is the servlet container that is used in the official Reference Implementation for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. The Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages specifications are developed by Sun under the Java Community Process. Tomcat is developed in an open and participatory environment and released under the Apache Software License version 2.0. Bugzilla:2160511 A new module stream: postgresql:15 RHEL 9.2 introduces PostgreSQL 15 as the postgresql:15 module stream. PostgreSQL 15 provides a number of new features and enhancements over version 13. Notable changes include: You can now access PostgreSQL JSON data by using subscripts. Example query: PostgreSQL now supports multirange data types and extends the range_agg function to aggregate multirange data types. PostgreSQL improves monitoring and observability: You can now track progress of the COPY commands and Write-ahead-log (WAL) activity. PostgreSQL now provides statistics on replication slots. By enabling the compute_query_id parameter, you can now uniquely track a query through several PostgreSQL features, including pg_stat_activity or EXPLAIN VERBOSE . PostgreSQL improves support for query parallelism by the following: Improved performance of parallel sequential scans. The ability of SQL Procedural Language ( PL/pgSQL ) to execute parallel queries when using the RETURN QUERY command. Enabled parallelism in the REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW command. PostgreSQL now includes the SQL standard MERGE command. You can use MERGE to write conditional SQL statements that can include the INSERT , UPDATE , and DELETE actions in a single statement. PostgreSQL provides the following new functions for using regular expressions to inspect strings: regexp_count() , regexp_instr() , regexp_like() , and regexp_substr() . PostgreSQL adds the security_invoker parameter, which you can use to query data with the permissions of the view caller, not the view creator. This helps you ensure that view callers have the correct permissions for working with the underlying data. PostgreSQL improves performance, namely in its archiving and backup facilities. PostgreSQL adds support for the LZ4 and Zstandard ( zstd ) lossless compression algorithms. PostgreSQL improves its in-memory and on-disk sorting algorithms. The updated postgresql.service systemd unit file now ensures that the postgresql service is started after the network is up. The following changes are backwards incompatible: The default permissions of the public schema have been modified. Newly created users need to grant permission explicitly by using the GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO myuser; command. For example: The libpq PQsendQuery() function is no longer supported in pipeline mode. Modify affected applications to use the PQsendQueryParams() function instead. See also Using PostgreSQL . To install the postgresql:15 stream, use: If you want to upgrade from an earlier postgresql stream within RHEL 9, migrate your PostgreSQL data as described in Migrating to a RHEL 9 version of PostgreSQL . For information about the length of support for the postgresql module streams, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle . Bugzilla:2128410 4.12. Compilers and development tools openblas rebased to version 0.3.21 The OpenBLAS library has been updated to version 0.3.21. This update includes performance optimalization patches for the IBM POWER10 platform. Bugzilla:2112099 A new module stream: swig:4.1 RHEL 9.2 introduces the Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator (SWIG) version 4.1 as the swig:4.1 module stream available in the CodeReady Linux Builder (CRB) repository. Note that packages included in the CodeReady Linux Builder repository are unsupported. Compared to SWIG 4.0 released in RHEL 9.0, SWIG 4.1 : Adds support for Node.js versions 12 to 18 and removes support for Node.js versions earlier than 6. Adds support for PHP 8 . Handles PHP wrapping entirely through PHP C API and no longer generates a .php wrapper by default. Supports only Perl 5.8.0 and later versions. Adds support for Python versions 3.9 to 3.11. Supports only Python 3.3 and later Python 3 versions, and Python 2.7 . Provides fixes for various memory leaks in Python -generated code. Improves support for the C99, C++11, C++14, and C++17 standards and starts implementing the C++20 standard. Adds support for the C++ std::unique_ptr pointer class. Includes several minor improvements in C++ template handling. Fixes C++ declaration usage in various cases. To install the swig:4.1 module stream: Enable the CodeReady Linux Builder (CRB) repository . Install the module stream: Bugzilla:2139101 New package: jmc in the CRB repository RHEL 9.2 introduces the JDK Mission Control (JMC) profiler for HotSpot JVMs version 8.2.0, available as the jmc package in the CodeReady Linux Builder (CRB) repository for the AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures. To install JMC, you must first enable the CodeReady Linux Builder (CRB) repository . Note that packages included in the CRB repository are unsupported. Bugzilla:2122401 OpenJDK service attributes now available in FIPS mode Previously, cryptographic services and algorithms available for OpenJDK in FIPS mode were too strictly filtered and resulted in unavailable service attributes. With this enhancement, these service attributes are now available in FIPS mode. Bugzilla:2186803 Performance Co-Pilot rebased to version 6.0 Performance Co-Pilot ( PCP ) has been updated to version 6.0. Notable improvements include: Version 3 PCP archive support: This includes support for instance domain change-deltas, Y2038-safe timestamps, nanosecond-precision timestamps, arbitrary timezones support, and 64-bit file offsets used throughout for larger (beyond 2GB) individual volumes. This feature is currently opt-in via the PCP_ARCHIVE_VERSION setting in the /etc/pcp.conf file. Version 2 archives remain the default. Only OpenSSL is used throughout PCP. Mozilla NSS/NSPR use has been dropped: This impacts libpcp , PMAPI clients and PMCD use of encryption. These elements are now configured and used consistently with pmproxy HTTPS support and redis-server , which were both already using OpenSSL. New nanosecond precision timestamp PMAPI calls for PCP library interfaces that make use of timestamps. These are all optional, and full backward compatibility is preserved for existing tools. The following tools and services have been updated: pcp2elasticsearch Implemented authentication support. pcp-dstat Implemented support for the top-alike plugins. pcp-htop Updated to the latest stable upstream release. pmseries Added sum , avg , stdev , nth_percentile , max_inst , max_sample , min_inst and min_sample functions. pmdabpf Added CO-RE (Compile Once - Run Everywhere) modules and support for AMD64, Intel 64-bit, 64-bit ARM, and IBM Power Systems. pmdabpftrace Moved example autostart scripts to the /usr/share directory. pmdadenki Added support for multiple active batteries. pmdalinux Updates for the latest /proc/net/netstat changes. pmdaopenvswitch Added additional interface and coverage statistics. pmproxy Request parameters can now be sent in the request body. pmieconf Added several pmie rules for Open vSwitch metrics. pmlogger_farm Added a default configuration file for farm loggers. pmlogger_daily_report Some major efficiency improvements. Bugzilla:2117074 grafana rebased to version 9.0.9 The grafana package has been rebased to version 9.0.9. Notable changes include: The time series panel is now the default visualization option, replacing the graph panel New heatmap panel New Prometheus and Loki query builder Updated Grafana Alerting Multiple UI/UX and performance improvements License changed from Apache 2.0 to GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) The following are offered as opt-in experimental features: New bar chart panel New state timeline panel New status history panel New histogram panel For more information, see: What's new in Grafana v9.0 and What's new in Grafana v8.0 . Bugzilla:2116847 grafana-pcp rebased to version 5.1.1 The grafana-pcp package has been rebased to version 5.1.1. Notable changes include: Query editor added buttons to disable rate conversion and time utilization conversion. Redis removed the deprecated label_values(metric, label) function. Redis fixed the network error for metrics with many series (requires Performance Co-Pilot v6+). Redis set the pmproxy API timeout to 1 minute. Bugzilla:2116848 Updated GCC Toolset 12 GCC Toolset 12 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. Notable changes introduced in RHEL 9.2 include: The GCC compiler has been updated to version 12.2.1, which provides many bug fixes and enhancements that are available in upstream GCC. annobin has been updated to version 11.08. The following tools and versions are provided by GCC Toolset 12: Tool Version GCC 12.2.1 GDB 11.2 binutils 2.38 dwz 0.14 annobin 11.08 To install GCC Toolset 12, run the following command as root: To run a tool from GCC Toolset 12: To run a shell session where tool versions from GCC Toolset 12 override system versions of these tools: For more information, see GCC Toolset 12 . Bugzilla:2110583 The updated GCC compiler is now available for RHEL 9.2 The system GCC compiler, version 11.3.1, has been updated to include numerous bug fixes and enhancements available in the upstream GCC. The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) provides tools for developing applications with the C, C++, and Fortran programming languages. For usage information, see Developing C and C++ applications in RHEL 9 . Bugzilla:2117632 LLVM Toolset rebased to version 15.0.7 LLVM Toolset has been updated to version 15.0.7. Notable changes include: The -Wimplicit-function-declaration and -Wimplicit-int warnings are enabled by default in C99 and newer. These warnings will become errors by default in Clang 16 and beyond. Bugzilla:2118567 Rust Toolset rebased to version 1.66.1 Rust Toolset has been updated to version 1.66.1. Notable changes include: The thread::scope API creates a lexical scope in which local variables can be safely borrowed by newly spawned threads, and those threads are all guaranteed to exit before the scope ends. The hint::black_box API adds a barrier to compiler optimization, which is useful for preserving behavior in benchmarks that might otherwise be optimized away. The .await keyword now makes conversions with the IntoFuture trait, similar to the relationship between for and IntoIterator . Generic associated types (GATs) allow traits to include type aliases with generic parameters, enabling new abstractions over both types and lifetimes. A new let - else statement allows binding local variables with conditional pattern matching, executing a divergent else block when the pattern does not match. Labeled blocks allow break statements to jump to the end of the block, optionally including an expression value. rust-analyzer is a new implementation of the Language Server Protocol, enabling Rust support in many editors. This replaces the former rls package, but you might need to adjust your editor configuration to migrate to rust-analyzer . Cargo has a new cargo remove subcommand for removing dependencies from Cargo.toml . Bugzilla:2123900 Go Toolset rebased to version 1.19.6 Go Toolset has been updated to version 1.19.6. Notable changes include: Security fixes to the following packages: crypto/tls mime/multipart net/http path/filepath Bug fixes to: The go command The linker The runtime The crypto/x509 package The net/http package The time package Bugzilla:2175173 The tzdata package now includes the /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list file Previously, the tzdata package only shipped the /usr/share/zoneinfo/leapseconds file. Some applications rely on the alternate format provided by the /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list file and, as a consequence, would experience errors. With this update, the tzdata package now includes both files, supporting applications that rely on either format. Bugzilla:2157982 4.13. Identity Management SSSD support for converting home directories to lowercase With this enhancement, you can now configure SSSD to convert user home directories to lowercase. This helps to integrate better with the case-sensitive nature of the RHEL environment. The override_homedir option in the [nss] section of the /etc/sssd/sssd.conf file now recognizes the %h template value. If you use %h as part of the override_homedir definition, SSSD replaces %h with the user's home directory in lowercase. Jira:RHELPLAN-139430 SSSD now supports changing LDAP user passwords with the shadow password policy With this enhancement, if you set ldap_pwd_policy to shadow in the /etc/sssd/sssd.conf file, LDAP users can now change their password stored in LDAP. Previously, password changes were rejected if ldap_pwd_policy was set to shadow as it was not clear if the corresponding shadow LDAP attributes were being updated. Additionally, if the LDAP server cannot update the shadow attributes automatically, set the ldap_chpass_update_last_change option to True in the /etc/sssd/sssd.conf file to indicate to SSSD to update the attribute. Bugzilla:1507035 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. By default its value is 15 seconds. For network volume clients such as NFS, to reduce the risk of losing access in case the KDC is momentarily unavailable, set this value to 60 seconds. Bugzilla:2184333 The ipapwpolicy ansible-freeipa module now supports new password policy options With this update, the ipapwpolicy module included in the ansible-freeipa package supports additional libpwquality library options: maxrepeat Specifies the maximum number of the same character in sequence. maxsequence Specifies the maximum length of monotonic character sequences ( abcd ). dictcheck Checks if the password is a dictionary word. usercheck Checks if the password contains the username. If any of the new password policy options are set, the minimum length of passwords is 6 characters. The new password policy settings are applied only to new passwords. In a mixed environment with RHEL 7 and RHEL 8 servers, the new password policy settings are enforced only on servers running on RHEL 8.4 and later. If a user is logged in to an IdM client and the IdM client is communicating with an IdM server running on RHEL 8.3 or earlier, then the new password policy requirements set by the system administrator do not apply. To ensure consistent behavior, upgrade all servers to RHEL 8.4 and later. Jira:RHELPLAN-137416 IdM now supports the ipanetgroup Ansible management module As an Identity Management (IdM) system administrator, you can integrate IdM with NIS domains and netgroups. Using the ipanetgroup ansible-freeipa module, you can achieve the following: You can ensure that an existing IdM netgroup contains specific IdM users, groups, hosts and host groups and nested IdM netgroups. You can ensure that specific IdM users, groups, hosts and host groups and nested IdM netgroups are absent from an existing IdM netgroup. You can ensure that a specific netgroup is present or absent in IdM. Jira:RHELPLAN-137411 New ipaclient_configure_dns_resolver and ipaclient_dns_servers Ansible ipaclient role variables specifying the client's DNS resolver Previously, when using the ansible-freeipa ipaclient role to install an Identity Management (IdM) client, it was not possible to specify the DNS resolver during the installation process. You had to configure the DNS resolver before the installation. With this enhancement, you can specify the DNS resolver when using the ipaclient role to install an IdM client with the ipaclient_configure_dns_resolver and ipaclient_dns_servers variables. Consequently, the ipaclient role modifies the resolv.conf file and the NetworkManager and systemd-resolved utilities to configure the DNS resolver on the client in a similar way that the ansible-freeipa ipaserver role does on the IdM server. As a result, configuring DNS when using the ipaclient role to install an IdM client is now more efficient. Note Using the ipa-client-install command-line installer to install an IdM client still requires configuring the DNS resolver before the installation. Jira:RHELPLAN-137406 Using the ipaclient role to install an IdM client with an OTP requires no prior modification of the Ansible controller Previously, the kinit command on the Ansible controller was a prerequisite for obtaining a one-time-password (OTP) for Identity Management (IdM) client deployment. The need to obtain the OTP on the controller was a problem for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (AAP), where the krb5-workstation package was not installed by default. With this update, the request for the administrator's TGT is now delegated to the first specified or discovered IdM server. As a result, you can now use an OTP to authorize the installation of an IdM client with no additional modification of the Ansible controller. This simplifies using the ipaclient role with AAP. Jira:RHELPLAN-137403 IdM now enforces the presence of the MS-PAC structure in Kerberos tickets Starting with RHEL 9.2, to increase security, Identity Management (IdM) and MIT Kerberos now enforce the presence of the Privilege Attribute Certificate (MS-PAC) structure in the Kerberos tickets issued by the RHEL IdM Kerberos Distribution Center (KDC). In November 2022, in response to CVE-2022-37967, Microsoft introduced an extended signature that is calculated over the whole MS-PAC structure rather than over the server checksum. Starting with RHEL 9.2, the Kerberos tickets issued by IdM KDC now also contain the extended signature. Note The presence of the extended signature is not yet enforced in IdM. Jira:RHELPLAN-159146 New realm configuration template for KDC enabling FIPS 140-3-compliant key encryption This update provides a new, EXAMPLE.COM , example realm configuration in the /var/kerberos/krb5kdc/kdc.conf file. It brings two changes: The FIPS 140-3-compliant AES HMAC SHA-2 family is added to the list of supported types for key encryption. The encryption type of the KDC master key is switched from AES 256 HMAC SHA-1 to AES 256 HMAC SHA-384 . Warning This update is about standalone MIT realms. Do not change the Kerberos Distribution Center (KDC) configuration in RHEL Identity Management. Using this configuration template is recommended for new realms. The template does not affect any realm already deployed. If you are planning to upgrade the configuration of your realm according to the template, consider the following points: For upgrading the master key, changing the setting in the KDC configuration is not enough. Follow the process described in the MIT Kerberos documentation: https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/krb5-1.20/doc/admin/database.html#updating-the-master-key Adding the AES HMAC SHA-2 family to the supported types for key encryption is safe at any point because it does not affect existing entries in the KDC. Keys will be generated only when creating new principals or when renewing credentials. Note that keys of this new type cannot be generated based on existing keys. To make these new encryption types available for a certain principal, its credentials have to be renewed, which means renewing keytabs for service principals too. The only case where principals should not feature an AES HMAC SHA-2 key is the Active Directory (AD) cross-realm ticket-granting ticket (TGT) ones. Because AD does not implement RFC8009, it does not use the AES HMAC SHA-2 encryption types family. Therefore, a cross-realm TGS-REQ using an AES HMAC SHA-2 -encrypted cross-realm TGT would fail. The best way to keep the MIT Kerberos client from using AES HMAC SHA-2 against AD is to not provide AES HMAC SHA-2 keys for the AD cross-realm principals. To do so, ensure that you create the cross-realm TGT entries with an explicit list of key encryption types that are all supported by AD: To ensure the MIT Kerboros clients use the AES HMAC SHA-2 encryption types, you must also set these encryption types as permitted in both the client and the KDC configuration. On RHEL, this setting is managed by the crypto-policy system. For example, on RHEL 9, hosts using the DEFAULT crypto-policy allow AES HMAC SHA-2 and AES HMAC SHA-1 encrypted tickets, while hosts using the FIPS crypto-policy only accept AES HMAC SHA-2 ones. Bugzilla:2068535 Configure pam_pwhistory using a configuration file With this update, you can configure the pam_pwhistory module in the /etc/security/pwhistory.conf configuration file. The pam_pwhistory module saves the last password for each user in order to manage password change history. Support has also been added in authselect which allows you to add the pam_pwhistory module to the PAM stack. Bugzilla:2126640 , Bugzilla:2142805 IdM now supports new Active Directory certificate mapping templates Active Directory (AD) domain administrators can manually map certificates to a user in AD using the altSecurityIdentities attribute. There are six supported values for this attribute, though three mappings are now considered insecure. As part of May 10,2022 security update , once this update is installed on a domain controller, all devices are in compatibility mode. If a certificate is weakly mapped to a user, authentication occurs as expected but a warning message is logged identifying the certificates that are not compatible with full enforcement mode. As of November 14, 2023 or later, all devices will be updated to full enforcement mode and if a certificate fails the strong mapping criteria, authentication will be denied. IdM now supports the new mapping templates, making it easier for an AD administrator to use the new rules and not maintain both. IdM now supports the following new mapping templates : Serial Number: LDAPU1:(altSecurityIdentities=X509:<I>{issuer_dn!ad_x500}<SR>{serial_number!hex_ur}) Subject Key Id: LDAPU1:(altSecurityIdentities=X509:<SKI>{subject_key_id!hex_u}) User SID: LDAPU1:(objectsid={sid}) If you do not want to reissue certificates with the new SID extension, you can create a manual mapping by adding the appropriate mapping string to a user's altSecurityIdentities attribute in AD. Bugzilla:2087247 samba rebased to version 4.17.5 The samba packages have been upgraded to upstream version 4.17.5, which provides bug fixes and enhancements over the version. The most notable changes: Security improvements in releases impacted the performance of the Server Message Block (SMB) server for high meta data workloads. This update improves he performance in this scenario. The --json option was added to the smbstatus utility to display detailed status information in JSON format. The samba.smb.conf and samba.samba3.smb.conf modules have been added to the smbconf Python API. You can use them in Python programs to read and, optionally, write the Samba configuration natively. Note that the server message block version 1 (SMB1) protocol is deprecated since Samba 4.11 and will be removed in a future release. Back up the database files before starting Samba. When the smbd , nmbd , or winbind services start, Samba automatically updates its tdb database files. Red Hat does not support downgrading tdb database files. After updating Samba, use the testparm utility to verify the /etc/samba/smb.conf file. For further information about notable changes, read the upstream release notes before updating. Bugzilla:2131993 ipa-client-install now supports authentication with PKINIT Previously, the ipa-client-install supported only password based authentication. This update provides support to ipa-client-install for authentication with PKINIT. For example: To use the PKINIT authentication, you must establish trust between IdM and the CA chain of the PKINIT certificate. For more information see the ipa-cacert-manage(1) man page. Also, the certificate identity mapping rules must map the PKINIT certificate of the host to a principal that has permission to add or modify a host record. For more information see the ipa certmaprule-add man page. Bugzilla:2143224 Red Hat IdM and Certificate System now support the EST protocol Enrollment over Secure Transport (EST) is a new Certificate System subsystem feature that is specified in RFC 7030 and it is used to provision certificates from a Certificate Authority (CA). EST implements the server side of the operation, such as /getcacerts , /simpleenroll , and /simplereenroll . Note that Red Hat supports both EST and the original Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) in Certificate System. Bugzilla:1849834 Enhance negative cache usage This update improves the SSSD performance for lookups by Security Identifier (SID). It now stores non-existing SIDs in the negative cache for individual domains and requests the domain that the SID belongs to. Bugzilla:1766490 Directory server now supports ECDSA private keys for TLS Previously, you could not use cryptographic algorithms that are stronger than RSA to secure Directory Server connections. With this enhancement, Directory Server now supports both ECDSA and RSA keys. Bugzilla:2096795 Directory Server now supports extended logging of search operations Previously, records in the access log did not show why some search operations had a very big etime value. With this release, you can enable logging of statistics such as a number of index lookups (database read operations) and overall duration of index lookups per each search operation. These statistical records can help to analyze why the etime value can be so resource expensive. Bugzilla:1859271 The NUNC_STANS error logging level was replaced by the new 1048576 logging level Previously, you could not easily debug password policy issues. With the new 1048576 logging level for the error log, you can now check the following password policy information: Which local policy rejects or allows a password update. The exact syntax violation. Bugzilla:2057070 Directory Server introduces the security log To properly track issues over time, Directory Server now has a specialized log that maintains security data. The security log does not rotate quickly and consumes less disk resources in comparison to the access log that has all the information, but requires expensive parsing to get the security data. The new server log records security events such as authentication events, authorization issues, DoS/TCP attacks, and other events. Directory Server stores the security log in the /var/log/dirsrv/slapd- instance_name / directory along with other log files. Bugzilla:2093981 Directory Server now can compress archived log files Previously, archived log files were not compressed. With this release, you can enable access, error, audit, audit fail log, security log files compression to save disk space. Note that only security log file compression is enabled by default. Use the following new configuration attributes in the cn=config entry to manage the compression: nsslapd-accesslog-compress for the access log nsslapd-errorlog-compress for the error log nsslapd-auditlog-compress for the audit log nsslapd-auditfaillog-compress for the audit fail log nsslapd-securelog-compress for the security log Bugzilla:1132524 New pamModuleIsThreadSafe configuration option is now available When a PAM module is thread-safe, you can improve the PAM authentication throughput and response time of that specific module, by setting the new pamModuleIsThreadSafe configuration option to yes : This configuration applies on the PAM module configuration entry (child of cn=PAM Pass Through Auth,cn=plugins,cn=config ). Use pamModuleIsThreadSafe option in the dse.ldif configuration file or the ldapmodify command. Note that the ldapmodify command requires you to restart the server. Bugzilla:2142639 Directory Server can now import a certificate bundle Previously, when you tried to add a certificate bundle by using the dsconf or dsctl utility, the procedure failed with an error, and the certificate bundle was not imported. Such behavior was caused by the certutil utility that could import only one certificate at a time. With this update, Directory Server works around the issue with the certutil , and a certificate bundle is added successfully. Bugzilla:1878808 Default behavior change: Directory Server now returns a DN in exactly the same spelling as it was added to the database With the new nsslapd-return-original-entrydn parameter under the cn=config entry, you can manage how Directory Server returns the distinguished name (DN) of entries during search operations. By default, the nsslapd-return-original-entrydn parameter is set to on , and Directory Server returns the DN exactly how it was originally added to the database. For example, you added or modified the entry uid=User,ou=PEople,dc=ExaMPlE,DC=COM , and with the setting turned on, Directory Server returns the same spelling of the DN for the entry: uid=User,ou=PEople,dc=ExaMPlE,DC=COM . When the nsslapd-return-original-entrydn parameter is set to off , Directory Server generates the entry DN by putting together a Relative DN (RDN) of the entry and the base DN that is stored in the database suffix configuration under cn=userroot,cn=ldbm database,cn=plugins,cn=config . If you set the base DN to ou=people,dc=example,dc=com , and the nsslapd-return-original-entrydn setting is off , Directory Server returns uid=User,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com during searches and not the spelling of the DN when you added the entry to the database. Bugzilla:2075017 MIT Kerberos supports the Ticket and Extended KDC MS-PAC signatures With this update, MIT Kerberos, which is used by Red Hat, implements support for two types of the Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC) signatures introduced by Microsoft in response to recent CVEs. Specifically, the following signatures are supported: Ticket signature Released in KB4598347 Addressing CVE-2020-17049 , also known as the "Bronze-Bit" attack Extended KDC signature Released in KB5020805 Addressing CVE-2022-37967 See also RHSA-2023:2570 and krb5-1.20.1-6.el9 . Bugzilla:2165827 New nsslapd-auditlog-display-attrs configuration parameter for the Directory Server audit log Previously, the distinguished name (DN) was the only way to identify the target entry in the audit log event. With the new nsslapd-auditlog-display-attrs parameter, you can configure Directory Server to display additional attributes in the audit log, providing more details about the modified entry.. For example, if you set the nsslapd-auditlog-display-attrs parameter to cn , the audit log displays the entry cn attribute in the output. To include all attributes of a modified entry, use an asterisk ( * ) as the parameter value. For more information, see nsslapd-auditlog-display-attrs . Bugzilla:2136610 4.14. Desktop Disable swipe to switch workspaces Previously, swiping up or down with three fingers always switched the workspace on a touch screen. With this release, you can disable the workspace switching. For details, see Disabling swipe to switch workspaces . Bugzilla:2154358 Wayland is now enabled on Aspeed GPUs Previously, the Aspeed GPU driver did not perform well enough to run a Wayland session. To work around that problem, the Wayland session was disabled for Aspeed GPUs. With this release, the driver performance has been significantly improved and the Wayland session is now responsive. As a result, the Wayland session is now enabled on Aspeed GPUs by default. Bugzilla:2131203 Custom right-click menu on the desktop You can now customize the menu that opens when you right-click the desktop background. You can create custom entries in the menu that run arbitrary commands. To customize the menu, see Customizing the right-click menu on the desktop . Bugzilla:2160553 4.15. The web console Certain cryptographic subpolicies are now available in the web console This update of the RHEL web console extends the options in the Change crypto policy dialog. Besides the four system-wide cryptographic policies, you can also apply the following subpolicies through the graphical interface now: DEFAULT:SHA1 is the DEFAULT policy with the SHA-1 algorithm enabled. LEGACY:AD-SUPPORT is the LEGACY policy with less secure settings that improve interoperability for Active Directory services. FIPS:OSPP is the FIPS policy with further restrictions inspired by the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation standard. Jira:RHELPLAN-137505 The web console now performs additional steps for binding LUKS-encrypted root volumes to NBDE With this update, the RHEL web console performs additional steps required for binding LUKS-encrypted root volumes to Network-Bound Disk Encryption (NBDE) deployments. After you select an encrypted root file system and a Tang server, you can skip adding the rd.neednet=1 parameter to the kernel command line, installing the clevis-dracut package, and regenerating an initial ramdisk ( initrd ). For non-root file systems, the web console now enables the remote-cryptsetup.target and clevis-luks-akspass.path systemd units, installs the clevis-systemd package, and adds the _netdev parameter to the fstab and crypttab configuration files. As a result, you can now use the graphical interface for all Clevis-client configuration steps when creating NBDE deployments for automated unlocking of LUKS-encrypted root volumes. Jira:RHELPLAN-139125 4.16. Red Hat Enterprise Linux system roles Routing rule is able to look up a route table by its name With this update, the rhel-system-roles.network RHEL system role supports looking up a route table by its name when you define a routing rule. This feature provides quick navigation for complex network configurations where you need to have different routing rules for different network segments. Bugzilla:2131293 The network system role supports setting a DNS priority value This enhancement adds the dns_priority parameter to the RHEL network system role. You can set this parameter to a value from -2147483648 to 2147483647 . The default value is 0 . Lower values have a higher priority. Note that negative values cause the system role to exclude other configurations with a greater numeric priority value. Consequently, in presence of at least one negative priority value, the system role uses only DNS servers from connection profiles with the lowest priority value. As a result, you can use the network system role to define the order of DNS servers in different connection profiles. Bugzilla:2133858 New IPsec customization parameters for the vpn RHEL system role Because certain network devices require IPsec customization to work correctly, the following parameters have been added to the vpn RHEL system role: Important Do not change the following parameters without advanced knowledge. Most scenarios do not require their customization. Furthermore, for security reasons, encrypt a value of the shared_key_content parameter by using Ansible Vault. Tunnel parameters: shared_key_content ike esp ikelifetime salifetime retransmit_timeout dpddelay dpdtimeout dpdaction leftupdown Per-host parameters: leftid rightid As a result, you can use the vpn role to configure IPsec connectivity to a wide range of network devices. Bugzilla:2119102 The selinux RHEL system role now supports the local parameter This update of the selinux RHEL system role introduces support for the local parameter. By using this parameter, you can remove only your local policy modifications and preserve the built-in SELinux policy. Bugzilla:2128843 The ha_cluster system role now supports automated execution of the firewall , selinux , and certificate system roles The ha_cluster RHEL system role now supports the following features: Using the firewall and selinux system roles to manage port access To configure the ports of a cluster to run the firewalld and selinux services, you can set the new role variables ha_cluster_manage_firewall and ha_cluster_manage_selinux to true . This configures the cluster to use the firewall and selinux system roles, automating and performing these operations within the ha_cluster system role. If these variables are set to their default value of false , the roles are not performed. With this release, the firewall is no longer configured by default, because it is configured only when ha_cluster_manage_firewall is set to true . Using the certificate system role to create a pcsd private key and certificate pair The ha_cluster system role now supports the ha_cluster_pcsd_certificates role variable. Setting this variable passes on its value to the certificate_requests variable of the certificate system role. This provides an alternative method for creating the private key and certificate pair for pcsd . Bugzilla:2130010 The postfix RHEL system role can now use the firewall and selinux RHEL system roles to manage port access With this enhancement, you can automate managing port access by using the new role variables postfix_manage_firewall and postfix_manage_selinux : If they are set to true , each role is used to manage the port access. If they are set to false , which is default, the roles do not engage. Bugzilla:2130329 The vpn RHEL system role can now use the firewall and selinux roles to manage port access With this enhancement, you can automate managing port access in the vpn RHEL system role through the firewall and selinux roles. If you set the new role variables vpn_manage_firewall and vpn_manage_selinux to true , the roles manage port access. Bugzilla:2130344 The logging RHEL system role now supports port access and generation of the certificates With this enhancement, you can use the logging role to manage ports access and generate certificates with new role variables. If you set the new role variables logging_manage_firewall and logging_manage_selinux to true , the roles manage port access. The new role variable for generating certificates is logging_certificates . The type and usage are the same as the certificate role certificate_requests . You can now automate these operations directly by using the logging role. Bugzilla:2130357 The metrics RHEL system role now can use the firewall role and the selinux role to manage port access With this enhancement, you can control access to ports. If you set the new role variables metrics_manage_firewall and metrics_manage_firewall to true , the roles manage port access. You can now automate and perform these operations directly by using the metrics role. Bugzilla:2133528 The nbde_server RHEL system role now can use the firewall and selinux roles to manage port access With this enhancement, you can use the firewall and selinux roles to manage ports access. If you set the new role variables nbde_server_manage_firewall and nbde_server_manage_selinux to true , the roles manage port access. You can now automate these operations directly by using the nbde_server role. Bugzilla:2133930 The initscripts network provider supports route metric configuration of the default gateway With this update, you can use the initscripts network provider in the rhel-system-roles.network RHEL system role to configure the route metric of the default gateway. The reasons for such a configuration could be: Distributing the traffic load across the different paths Specifying primary routes and backup routes Leveraging routing policies to send traffic to specific destinations through specific paths Bugzilla:2134202 The cockpit RHEL system role integration with the firewall , selinux , and certificate roles This enhancement enables you to integrate the cockpit role with the firewall role and the selinux role to manage port access and the certificate role to generate certificates. To control the port access, use the new cockpit_manage_firewall and cockpit_manage_selinux variables. Both variables are set to false by default and are not executed. Set them to true to allow the firewall and selinux roles to manage the RHEL web console service port access. The operations will then be executed within the cockpit role. Note that you are responsible for managing port access for firewall and SELinux. To generate certificates, use the new cockpit_certificates variable. The variable is set to false by default and is not executed. You can use this variable the same way you would use the certificate_request variable in the certificate role. The cockpit role will then use the certificate role to manage the RHEL web console certificates. Bugzilla:2137663 New RHEL system role for direct integration with Active Directory The new rhel-system-roles.ad_integration RHEL system role was added to the rhel-system-roles package. As a result, administrators can now automate direct integration of a RHEL system with an Active Directory domain. Bugzilla:2140795 New Ansible Role for Red Hat Insights and subscription management The rhel-system-roles package now includes the remote host configuration ( rhc ) system role. This role enables administrators to easily register RHEL systems to Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM) and Satellite servers. By default, when you register a system by using the rhc system role, the system connects to Red Hat Insights. With the new rhc system role, administrators can now automate the following tasks on the managed nodes: Configure the connection to Red Hat Insights, including automatic update, remediations, and tags for the system. Enable and disable repositories. Configure the proxy to use for the connection. Set the release of the system. For more information about how to automate these tasks, see Using the RHC system role to register the system . Bugzilla:2141330 Added support for the cloned MAC address Cloned MAC address is the MAC address of the device WAN port which is the same as the MAC address of the machine. With this update, users can specify the bonding or bridge interface with the MAC address or the strategy such as random or preserve to get the default MAC address for the bonding or bridge interface. Bugzilla:2143768 Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role supports asynchronous high availability replicas Previously, Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role supported only primary, synchronous, and witness high availability replicas. Now, you can set the mssql_ha_replica_type variable to asynchronous to configure it with asynchronous replica type for a new or existing replica. Bugzilla:2151282 Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role supports the read-scale cluster type Previously, Microsoft SQL Ansible role supported only the external cluster type. Now, you can configure the role with a new variable mssql_ha_ag_cluster_type . The default value is external , use it to configure the cluster with Pacemaker. To configure the cluster without Pacemaker, use the value none for that variable. Bugzilla:2151283 Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role can generate TLS certificates Previously, you needed to generate a TLS certificate and a private key on the nodes manually before configuring the Microsoft SQL Ansible role. With this update, the Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role can use the redhat.rhel_system_roles.certificate role for that purpose. Now, you can set the mssql_tls_certificates variable in the format of the certificate_requests variable of the certificate role to generate a TLS certificate and a private key on the node. Bugzilla:2151284 Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role supports configuring SQL Server version 2022 Previously, Microsoft SQL Ansible role supported only configuring SQL Server version 2017 and version 2019. This update provides you with the support for SQL Server version 2022 for Microsoft SQL Ansible role. Now, you can set mssql_version value to 2022 for configuring a new SQL Server 2022 or upgrading SQL Server from version 2019 to version 2022. Note that upgrade of an SQL Server from version 2017 to version 2022 is unavailable. Bugzilla:2153428 Microsoft SQL Server Ansible role supports configuration of the Active Directory authentication With this update, the Microsoft SQL Ansible role supports configuration of the Active Directory authentication for an SQL Server. Now, you can configure the Active Directory authentication by setting variables with the mssql_ad_ prefix. Bugzilla:2163709 The journald RHEL system role is now available The journald service collects and stores log data in a centralized database. With this enhancement, you can use the journald system role variables to automate the configuration of the systemd journal, and configure persistent logging by using the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Bugzilla:2165175 The ha_cluster system role now supports quorum device configuration A quorum device acts as a third-party arbitration device for a cluster. A quorum device is recommended for clusters with an even number of nodes. With two-node clusters, the use of a quorum device can better determine which node survives in a split-brain situation. You can now configure a quorum device with the ha_cluster system role, both qdevice for a cluster and qnetd for an arbitration node. Bugzilla:2140804 4.17. Virtualization Hardware cryptographic devices can now be automatically hot-plugged Previously, it was only possible to define cryptographic devices for passthrough if they were present on the host before the mediated device was started. Now, you can define a mediated device matrix that lists all the cryptographic devices that you want to pass through to your virtual machine (VM). As a result, the specified cryptographic devices are automatically passed through to the running VM if they become available later. Also, if the devices become unavailable, they are removed from the VM, but the guest operating system keeps running normally. Bugzilla:1871126 Improved performance for PCI passthrough devices on IBM Z With this update, the PCI passthrough implementation on IBM Z hardware has been enhanced through multiple improvements to I/O handling. As a result, PCI devices passed through to KVM virtual machines (VMs) on IBM Z hosts now have significantly better performance. In addition, ISM devices can now be assigned to VMs on IBM Z hosts. Bugzilla:1871143 New package: passt This update adds the passt package, which makes it possible to use the passt user-mode networking back end for virtual machines. For more information on using passt , see Configuring the passt user-space connection . Bugzilla:2131015 zPCI device assignment It is now possible to attach zPCI devices as pass-through devices to virtual machines (VMs) hosted on RHEL running on IBM Z hardware. For example, this enables the use of NVMe flash drives in VMs. Jira:RHELPLAN-59528 New package: python-virt-firmware This update adds the python-virt-firmware package, which contains tools for handling Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) firmware images. You can use these tools for example for the following: Printing the content of firmware images Updating the edk2 variables store Handling secure boot key enrolment without booting up the virtual machine in QEMU As a result, these make it easier to build OVMF images. Bugzilla:2089785 4.18. Supportability The sos utility is moving to a 4-week update cadence Instead of releasing sos updates with RHEL minor releases, the sos utility release cadence is changing from 6 months to 4 weeks. You can find details about the updates for the sos package in the RPM changelog every 4 weeks or you can read a summary of sos updates in the RHEL Release Notes every 6 months. Bugzilla:2164987 The sos clean command now obfuscates IPv6 addresses Previously, the sos clean command did not obfuscate IPv6 addresses, leaving some customer-sensitive data in the collected sos report. With this update, sos clean detects and obfuscates IPv6 addresses as expected. Bugzilla:2134906 4.19. Containers New podman RHEL System Role is now available Beginning with Podman 4.2, you can use the podman System Role to manage Podman configuration, containers, and systemd services that run Podman containers. Jira:RHELPLAN-118705 Podman now supports events for auditing Beginning with Podman v4.4, you can gather all relevant information about a container directly from a single event and journald entry. To enable Podman auditing, modify the container.conf configuration file and add the events_container_create_inspect_data=true option to the [engine] section. The data is in JSON format, the same as from the podman container inspect command. For more information, see How to use new container events and auditing features in Podman 4.4 . Jira:RHELPLAN-136602 The container-tools meta-package has been updated The container-tools RPM meta-package, which contains the Podman, Buildah, Skopeo, crun and runc tools are now available. This update applies a series of bug fixes and enhancements over the version. Notable changes in Podman v4.4 include: Introduce Quadlet, a new systemd-generator that easily creates and maintains systemd services using Podman. A new command, podman network update , has been added, which updates networks for containers and pods. A new command, podman buildx version , has been added, which shows the buildah version. Containers can now have startup healthchecks, allowing a command to be run to ensure the container is fully started before the regular healthcheck is activated. Support a custom DNS server selection using the podman --dns command. Creating and verifying sigstore signatures using Fulcio and Rekor is now available. Improved compatibility with Docker (new options and aliases). Improved Podman's Kubernetes integration - the commands podman kube generate and podman kube play are now available and replace the podman generate kube and podman play kube commands. The podman generate kube and podman play kube commands are still available but it is recommended to use the new podman kube commands. Systemd-managed pods created by the podman kube play command now integrate with sd-notify, using the io.containers.sdnotify annotation (or io.containers.sdnotify/USDname for specific containers). Systemd-managed pods created by podman kube play can now be auto-updated, using the io.containers.auto-update annotation (or io.containers.auto-update/USDname for specific containers). Podman has been upgraded to version 4.4, for further information about notable changes, see upstream release notes . Jira:RHELPLAN-136607 Aardvark and Netavark now support custom DNS server selection The Aardvark and Netavark network stack now support custom DNS server selection for containers instead of the default DNS servers on the host. You have two options for specifying the custom DNS server: Add the dns_servers field in the containers.conf configuration file. Use the new --dns Podman option to specify an IP address of the DNS server. The --dns option overrides the values in the container.conf file. Jira:RHELPLAN-138024 Skopeo now supports generating sigstore key pairs You can use the skopeo generate-sigstore-key command to generate a sigstore public/private key pair. For more information, see skopeo-generate-sigstore-key man page. Jira:RHELPLAN-151481 Toolbox is now available With the toolbox utility, you can use the containerized command-line environment without installing troubleshooting tools directly on your system. Toolbox is built on top of Podman and other standard container technologies from OCI. For more information, see toolbx . Jira:RHELPLAN-150266 Container images now have a two-digit tag In RHEL 9.0 and RHEL 9.1, container images had a three-digit tag. Starting from RHEL 9.2, container images now have a two-digit tag. Jira:RHELPLAN-147982 The capability for multiple trusted GPG keys for signing images is available The /etc/containers/policy.json file supports a new keyPaths field which accepts a list of files containing the trusted keys. Because of this, the container images signed with Red Hat's General Availability and Beta GPG keys are now accepted in the default configuration. For example: Jira:RHELPLAN-129327 Podman now supports the pre-execution hooks The root-owned plugin scripts located in the /usr/libexec/podman/pre-exec-hooks and /etc/containers/pre-exec-hooks directories define a fine-control over container operations, especially blocking unauthorized actions. The /etc/containers/podman_preexec_hooks.txt file must be created by an administrator and can be empty. If /etc/containers/podman_preexec_hooks.txt does not exist, the plugin scripts will not be executed. If all plugin scripts return zero value, then the podman command is executed, otherwise, the podman command exits with the inherited exit code. Red Hat recommends using the following naming convention to execute the scripts in the correct order: DDD- plugin_name . lang , for example 010-check-group.py . Note that the plugin scripts are valid at the time of creation. Containers created before plugin scripts are not affected. Bugzilla:2119200 The sigstore signatures are now available Beginning with Podman 4.2, you can use the sigstore format of container image signatures. The sigstore signatures are stored in the container registry together with the container image without the need to have a separate signature server to store image signatures. Jira:RHELPLAN-74672 Toolbox can create RHEL 9 containers Previously, the Toolbox utility only supported RHEL UBI 8 images. With this release, Toolbox now also supports RHEL UBI 9. As a result, you can create a Toolbox container based on RHEL 8 or 9. The following command creates a RHEL container based on the same RHEL release as your host system: Alternatively, you can create a container with a specific RHEL release. For example, to create a container based on RHEL 9.2, use the following command: Bugzilla:2163752 New package: passt This update adds the passt package, which makes it possible to use the pasta rootless networking back end for containers. In comparison to the Slirp connection, which is currently used as default for unprivileged networking by Podman, pasta provides the following enhancements: Improved throughput and better support for IPv6, which includes support for the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) and for DHCPv6 The ability to configure port forwarding of TCP and UDP ports on IPv6 To use pasta to connect a Podman container, use the --network pasta command-line option. Bugzilla:2209419

Commands:
[[packages]] name = "microshift" version = "*" [customizations.services] enabled = ["microshift"] [[customizations.firewall.zones]] name = "trusted" sources = ["10.42.0.0/16", "169.254.169.1"]
dns-resolver: config: server: - fe80::deef:1%enp1s0
vdpa dev vstats show vdpa-a qidx 1 vdpa-a: vdpa-a: queue_type tx received_desc 321812 completed_desc 321812
vdpa dev vstats show vdpa-a qidx 16 vdpa-a: queue_type control_vq received_desc 17 completed_desc 17
Possible SYN flooding on port <ip_address>:<port>.
--- interfaces: - name: eth1.101 type: vlan state: up vlan: base-iface: eth1 id: 101 registration-protocol: mvrp loose-binding: true reorder-headers: true
tuna <command> [-S CPU_SOCKET_LIST]
rteval --summarize rteval-<date>-N.tar.bz2
oslat -b 32 -D 10s -W 100 -z -c 1-4
dnf install python3.11 dnf install python3.11-pip
python3.11 python3.11 -m pip --help
dnf module install nginx:1.22
SELECT ('{ "postgres": { "release": 15 }}'::jsonb)['postgres']['release'];
postgres=# CREATE USER mydbuser; postgres=# GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO mydbuser; postgres=# \c postgres mydbuser postgres=USD CREATE TABLE mytable (id int);
dnf module install postgresql:15
dnf module install swig:4.1
dnf install gcc-toolset-12
scl enable gcc-toolset-12 tool
scl enable gcc-toolset-12 bash
kadmin.local <<EOF add_principal +requires_preauth -e aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96,aes128-cts-hmac-sha1-96 -pw [password] krbtgt/[MIT realm]@[AD realm] add_principal +requires_preauth -e aes256-cts-hmac-sha1-96,aes128-cts-hmac-sha1-96 -pw [password] krbtgt/[AD realm]@[MIT realm] EOF
ipa-client-install --pkinit-identity=FILE:/path/to/cert.pem,/path/to/key.pem --pkinit-anchor=FILE:/path/to/cacerts.pem
pamModuleIsThreadSafe: yes
"registry.redhat.io": [ { "type": "signedBy", "keyType": "GPGKeys", "keyPaths": ["/etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release", "/etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-beta"] } ]
toolbox create
toolbox create --distro rhel --release 9.2