Current Release 9.6

Release notes for Rocky Linux 9.6¶

You can find a complete list of most changes in the upstream release notes found here.

Upgrading¶

You can upgrade from Rocky Linux 9.x to Rocky Linux 9.6 by running sudo dnf -y upgrade.

Images¶

Several images are available, in addition to the standard installation images, including those for cloud and container platforms.

You can find more information on the artifacts produced by the Cloud Special Interest Group, as well as details on how to get involved, on the SIG/Cloud Wiki page.

Image build workflow and process¶

With the release of Rocky Linux 9.6, the process of building and delivering our images continues to improve. KIWI, a modern image-building tool that allows for a more consistent and maintainable workflow, created most of the images for this release.

Images still built using ImageFactory include Vagrant (Libvirt, VirtualBox, and VMware) and OCP-Base (Oracle Cloud Platform). All other Cloud and Container images are now built with KIWI. This transition enables us to publish updates more frequently across supported platforms while maintaining feature parity with prior releases.

If you encounter any issues or differences in behavior, please notify them. We aim to resolve or explain any unexpected changes quickly.

New WSL image¶

The introduction of a new WSL image, in addition to the KIWI upgrades, is also here!
This makes it possible to use the normal out-of-box experience, which the store-provided images have:

• download the image: x86_64 or aarch64
• to install run wsl --install --from-file path/to/file.wsl rocky-wsl-base or just double-click the wsl file
• the first time the wsl image starts it will ask you to specify a username

Find further details in the documentation page.

Installing¶

Before installing, ensure compatibility of your CPU with this procedure!

To install Rocky Linux 9.6, visit the download page and download the version corresponding to your architecture.

The Rocky team release highlights¶

New and notable¶

Major changes¶

For a complete list of major changes, see the upstream listing here.

The highlights and new features of this release are detailed below.

Security¶

Listed below are security-related highlights in the latest Rocky Linux 9.6 release. For a complete list of security-related changes, see the upstream link here:

• SELinux now provides additional policy rules that confine iio-sensor-proxy, power-profiles-daemon, switcheroo-control, and samba-bgqd.

Dynamic programming languages, web, and database servers¶

For a detailed list of the changes in this category, see the upstream link here.

Later versions of the following module streams are now available:

• PHP 8.3 module stream
• MySQL 8.4 module stream
• nginx 1.26 module stream

Compilers and development tools¶

For details on the changes in this category, see the upstream link here

Updated performance tools and debuggers:

• Valgrind 3.24.0
• SystemTap 5.2
• elfutils 0.192
• libabigail 2.6

Updated performance monitoring tools:

• PCP 6.3.2

Updated compiler toolsets:

• LLVM Toolset 19.17
• Rust Toolset 1.84.1
• Go Toolset 1.23

Known issues¶

ZFS current module will not load in 9.6¶

The currently released zfs module from OpenZFS will not load on Rocky Linux 9.6. For those using zfs on 9.5 and planning to upgrade to 9.6, it is recommended to hold off for now. If you are planning a fresh installation of 9.6 and use zfs, then you should wait for the release of the updated module again. You can follow the issue here and here.

Update: An update to the 2.2.8 branch fixes the issue with 9.6. Still waiting on an update for the 2.3 branch.

SELinux issue on server, workstation, or virtual host systems with passt installed¶

When using a workstation, server, or virtual host with a passt back end installed, the interface will fail to start if SELinux is enabled. See this upstream issue for more information.

Upgrade failure with gstreamer packages installed¶

If upgrading a system, you get a failure:

Error: Transaction test error:
file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstdvbsuboverlay.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-1.22.12-4.el9_6.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64
file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstsiren.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-1.22.12-4.el9_6.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64
file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstasf.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free-1.22.12-3.el9.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64
file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstdvdlpcmdec.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free-1.22.12-3.el9.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64
file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstdvdsub.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free-1.22.12-3.el9.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64
file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstrealmedia.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free-1.22.12-3.el9.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64

Stop the upgrade and do the following before attempting the upgrade again:

sudo dnf swap gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64 gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free-1.22.12-3.el9.x86_64 
sudo dnf swap gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld-1:1.22.1-1.el9.x86_64 gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-1.22.12-4.el9_6.x86_64 

As with any release, there are many known issues. Review the upstream listing for the complete details on these issues.

Reporting bugs¶

Please report any bugs you encounter to the Rocky Linux Bug Tracker. We also welcome you to join our community in any way you wish, be it on our Forums, Mattermost, IRC on Libera.Chat, Reddit, Mailing Lists, or any other way you wish to participate!