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On 6 May 2024, the AlmaLinux team announced that the stable release of AlmaLinux 9.4, also known as “Seafoam Ocelot”, had been officially released and was ready for use. Version 9.4 uses the 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4 kernel.
Happy Monday! We have great news: AlmaLinux 9.4, A.K.A. "Seafoam Ocelot," is now available!
— AlmaLinux (@AlmaLinux) May 6, 2024
Click the link to read release notes, access the AlmaLinux Community Chat, or learn how to report bugs: https://t.co/325nLjE7tu #Linux #OpenSource pic.twitter.com/BXimo0AoYe
As usual, the installer is available for four architectures:
AlmaLinux, which corresponds to the releases and software versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), is built from the same sources as RHEL, promises full compatibility with RHEL, and does all this using freely available open-source code. This makes it an outstanding choice for those looking for a truly open-source Enterprise Linux. If you’d like to gain a deeper understanding of how AlmaLinux is built, watch this 23-minute video, in which the project’s lead architect explains it in detail at AlmaLinux Day in Germany earlier this year:
Release notes and further information
AlmaLinux 9.4 introduces updates to improve system security and data protection. Further developments to the web console and system roles automate additional operations and promote consistency across complex IT environments. The features of the new release are designed to improve system availability and reliability, facilitate easier recovery operations, and enhance the snapshot capabilities of virtual machines in hybrid cloud environments. The new system roles introduced enable the creation and management of Logical Volume Manager (LVM) snapshots to improve data backup and recovery processes. The updates in version 9.4 also further enhance performance, scalability and reliability for developers when building and managing applications.
You can read the full release notes for this version on the wiki: AlmaLinux OS 9.4 release notes, and the full list of changes in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 release notes.
Software versions in AlmaLinux 9.4
From a web server perspective, version 9.4 is one of the most important point releases: updated versions of PHP, Python, nginx and databases have been released as module streams.
| Area | Versions |
|---|---|
| Languages | PHP 8.2, Python 3.12, Ruby 3.3 |
| Web server | nginx 1.24 |
| Databases | MariaDB 10.11, PostgreSQL 16 |
| Version control | Git 2.43.0, Git LFS 3.4.1 |
| Compilers and toolkits | GCC Toolset 13, LLVM Toolset 17.0.6, Rust Toolset 1.75.1, Go Toolset 1.21.7 |
| Troubleshooting and performance monitoring | Valgrind 3.22, SystemTap 5.0, elfutils 0.190, PCP 6.2.0 |
PHP 8.2, for example, can be enabled on an existing server as follows:
dnf module reset php
dnf module install php:8.2
Before making the switch, it’s worth checking whether your website’s CMS and plugins support PHP 8.2; we’ve written about the end-of-life dates for older PHP versions in our article ‘End of support for PHP 8.2’.
Security updates
- SELinux 3.6: policies can now be customised using ‘deny’ rules
- Keylime: the server-side components (verifier and registrar) can also be run as containers
- Rsyslog: customisable TLS/SSL encryption settings and privilege reduction options
- OpenSSL: a separate drop-in library for provider-specific configuration files
- libkcapi 1.4.0 and stunnel 5.71, the latter with support for modern PostgreSQL clients
Renewal of support for obsolete hardware
With AlmaLinux 9.4, the project has also set itself apart by fulfilling another request from the community, namely to support older hardware, so that users can continue to run the updated operating systems on these machines.
The following device drivers have been modified to re-add the PCI identifiers of hardware disabled in the upstream:
- aacraid – Dell PERC2, 2/Si, 3/Si, 3/Di, Adaptec Advanced RAID Products, HP NetRAID-4M, IBM ServeRAID & ICP SCSI
- be2iscsi – Emulex OneConnect Open-iSCSI for BladeEngine 2 and 3 adapters
- be2net – Emulex BladeEngine network adapters (from kernel version 5.14.0-427.18.1.el9_4)
- hpsa – HP Smart Array Controller
- lpfc – Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel SCSI
- megaraid_sas – Broadcom MegaRAID SAS
- mlx4_core – Mellanox Gen2 and ConnectX-2 adapters
- mpt3sas – LSI MPT Fusion SAS 3.0
- mptsas – Fusion MPT SAS Host
- qla2xxx – QLogic Fibre Channel HBA
- qla4xxx – QLogic iSCSI HBA
You can find the full list of hardware support added in this release in the ‘Extended Hardware Support’ section of the 9.4 release notes. This is particularly useful for older, but still fully functional, dedicated servers with RAID controllers, where RHEL 9 no longer recognises the disk controller.
Although this list is fairly comprehensive, the AlmaLinux team welcomes feedback from all users! If you’re using older hardware and the list doesn’t cover everything you need, please let us know on the AlmaLinux forums: Re-adding support for older hardware.
ISO verification and updating
wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux-9
gpg --import RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux-9
wget https://vault.almalinux.org/9.4/isos/x86_64/CHECKSUM
gpg --verify CHECKSUM
sha256sum AlmaLinux-9.4-x86_64-boot.iso
The line ‘Good signature from “AlmaLinux OS 9”’ and the SHA256 value matching the CHECKSUM file indicate that the download is correct. On an existing AlmaLinux 9 system, run dnf upgrade -y to update; if you were using the 9.4 beta, install the 9.4 repository package first:
rpm -i https://vault.almalinux.org/9.4/BaseOS/x86_64/os/Packages/almalinux-repos-9.4-1.el9.x86_64.rpm --replacefiles
dnf upgrade -y
You can update from AlmaLinux 8 to 9 locally by following our ELevate guide.
How long will AlmaLinux 9 be supported?
Active support for AlmaLinux 9 will continue until 31 May 2027, and security updates will be provided until 31 May 2032. Further releases in the 9 series:
- AlmaLinux 9.0 (May 2022)
- AlmaLinux 9.1 (November 2022)
- AlmaLinux 9.2 (May 2023)
- AlmaLinux 9.3 (November 2023)
- AlmaLinux 9.5 (November 2024)
- AlmaLinux 9.6 (May 2025)
- AlmaLinux 9.7 (November 2025)
- AlmaLinux 9.8 (May 2026)
AlmaLinux is an operating system available on both our KVM VPS servers and our dedicated servers. Interestingly, AlmaLinux was launched by the CloudLinux team, and we also use CloudLinux OS on our cPanel hosting servers.