5 Known Issues
This chapter describes known issues that you may encounter when installing and using the Oracle Linux 9 software. Unless indicated otherwise, the issues apply to both x86_64 and aarch64 systems. Information that pertains only to a specific platform is also noted accordingly.
Installation Issues
The following are known installation issues for Oracle Linux 9.
Network Installation With PXE Boot Server Fails
While using a PXE boot server to perform a network installation on a UEFI client where
Secure Boot is enabled, the installation might fail because the grubx64.efi
file can't load the grub
configuration file. The grub
bootloader switches to the command line mode and the installation process stops at the
grub
prompt.
To work around this issue, configure the
tftpd
service to run with the -r
blksize
option enabled.
If you are using dnsmasq
for TFTP services,
uncomment the tftp-no-blocksize
line in the
/etc/dnsmasq.conf
file. Then restart the
dnsmasq
service.
(Bug ID 34233443)
fwupd
Error Reported During an Oracle Linux 9 Update
During an update from Oracle Linux 9.0 to the current Oracle Linux 9 update release, the
installer program might report failures when setting properties for the
pesign.service
. A message similar to the following might be displayed:
... Running transaction ... Running scriptlet: fwupd-1.7.4-2.0.2.el9_0.aarch64 3/4 Failed to set unit properties on pesign.service: Unit pesign.service not found. ...
You can ignore the message. The upgrade successfully completes in the end.
(Bug ID 34760075)
Virtualization Issues
The following are known virtualization issues for Oracle Linux 9
KVM Virtual Machines Panic When Started on Oracle Linux 9 Hosts
The glibc
version that's included with Oracle Linux 9 checks for
compatibility between a system's CPU and new architectures that are supported. A system might
pass the compatibility check. However, the CPU flags that are set on the system after passing
the check might be unknown to the KVM virtual machines that are hosted on that system.
Consequently, the VMs panic when they're booted.
To work around this issue, run the following command:
virsh edit vm-name
Then, add the following declaration in the virtual machine's XML file:
<cpu mode='host-model' check='partial'/>
The check
parameter's partial
setting sets
libvirt
to check the VM's CPU specification before starting a domain.
However, the rest of the checking remains on the hypervisor, which can still provide a
different virtual CPU.
(Bug ID 34224821)
Virtual Machines Fail to Start at Boot Because the virbr0
Interface Isn't
Available
After reboot, the virbr0
network interface might be missing, which can
prevent virtual machines from automatically starting up after boot.
The libvirt daemons on Oracle Linux 9 are modular to handle atomic features within the
virtualization environment and are started and run as required, and stopped after two minutes
of inactivity. The daemon responsible for setting up the networking interfaces for libvirt is
virtnetworkd
. This service isn't automatically started when a virtual
machine is started.
To work around this issue, enable the virtnetworkd
service so that the
service starts at boot:
sudo systemctl enable --now virtnetworkd
(Bug ID 34237540)
Kernel Issues
The following are known kernel issues in Oracle Linux 9.
Kdump Might Fail on Some AMD Hardware
Kdump might fail on some AMD hardware that's running the current Oracle Linux release. Impacted hardware includes the AMD EPYC CPU servers.
To work around this issue, modify the /etc/sysconfig/kdump
configuration
file and remove the iommu=off
command line option from the
KDUMP_COMMANDLINE_APPEND
variable. Restart the kdump
service for the changes to take effect.
(Bug ID 31274238, 34211826, 34312626)
flatpak-system-helper
File Access Triggers SELinux Policy
Violations
Booting Oracle Linux 9 with a GUI desktop environment that has SELinux enabled can produce SELinux security messages similar to the following:
SELinux is preventing /usr/libexec/flatpak-system-helper from read access on the file passwd. SELinux is preventing /usr/libexec/flatpak-system-helper from write access on the directory flatpak. SELinux is preventing /usr/libexec/flatpak-system-helper from watch access on the directory /usr/libexec.
A popup message notifying you of a violation might appear
immediately after the installation if the Server with
GUI
or Workstation with GUI
installation profiles are selected and SELinux is enabled and
Flatpak installed.
You can continue to use Flatpak with SELinux; however, continued use can result in large numbers of messages to the logs.
To work around this issue, create an SELinux policy module for
the flatpak-system-helper
service:
ausearch -c 'flatpak-system-' --raw |audit2allow -M my-flatpaksystem semodule -i my-flatpaksystem.pp
(Bug ID 34321783)
(aarch64) Some GUI Elements Aren't Displayed During Installation and Boot Using VGA Output
During installations on the Arm platform, the Oracle Linux installer does not display some GUI elements, such as the progress update screen, on VGA output. Output is displayed on the serial console, instead.
Additionally, if you install Oracle Linux with GUI on an encrypted disk, for example, by choosing Server with GUI during the installation stage, and VGA is enabled, the password prompt doesn't appear on the VGA output at system boot, and consequently, the boot process can not be completed. The prompt appears only on a serial console, and therefore, you would need to switch to a serial console to provide the password there.
This issue is specific to systems on the Arm platform only and occurs regardless of whether you are using secure boot or non secure boot. Further, the issue applies to Oracle Linux 8 or Oracle Linux 9 systems that use UEKR6 and UEKR7. The issue occurs wherever Plymouth graphical elements are loaded in the GUI.
To resolve these GUI issues and to cause these elements to display on VGA output without
using a serial console, add plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles
to the kernel command line in the GRUB configuration. For instructions, see
the Managing Kernels and System Boot chapter in Oracle Linux 9: Managing Core System
Configuration.
(Bug ID 35034465 and 35270637)
Certain SEV Guest Configurations Might Cause Hypervisor CPU Soft-Lockup Warnings
On older generation AMD systems that are based on the AMD Rome processors, such as E2 and E3 systems, a guest with more than 350GB memory that's configured to use Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) memory encryption can trigger a CPU soft-lockup warning on the hypervisor host during guest boot or shutdown operations.
The time that's needed to flush the pinned memory that's being encrypted is proportional to the amount of guest memory. However, with larger amounts of memory in excess of 350GB, the time on the CPU to flush the memory becomes excessive, which consequently triggers a warning. After the memory is flushed, the hypervisor resumes normal operations.
Newer systems that are based on the AMD Milan processor, such as E4 systems, have hardware support that can minimize the time required for flushing the memory. Therefore, the CPU soft-hang issue isn't encountered.
As a workaround, if a SEV enabled guest with more then 350GB of memory is required, create the guest on a system that's based on the AMD Milan processor. If you are using systems with the AMD Rome processor, limit the guest memory to less than 350GB if the guest is configured with SEV memory encryption.
(Bug ID 34050377)
Tuned Profile Packages for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Are Moved
Packages intended for use only on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure instances, such
as the tuned-profile-oci-*
packages, are available in the
ol9_appstream
repository. Some of these packages were previously
available in the dedicated ol9_oci_included
repository but have been
moved to avoid cross-channel dependencies.
The tuned-profile
packages include profiles intended to run in specific
corresponding environments and must be intentionally installed for the correct
environment.
Sources for all profiles are included in the tuned source RPM package that is available
in the ol9_baseos
repository.
(Bug 34867566)