On 7 May 2024, the CloudLinux team announced the stable release of CloudLinux OS 9.4, which, according to the announcement, brings significant improvements in performance, security and stability for hosting environments. AlmaLinux OS 9.4 Stable, on which CloudLinux 9.4 is based, was released the day before. You can find information on installation and updating below.

🎉 Big News! CloudLinux OS 9.4 Stable Release has arrived! Elevate your hosting experience with improved performance, enhanced security, and unmatched stability. Dive into the upgrade instructions and detailed changelog below.https://t.co/OE5vcEQ920
#CloudLinux #StableRelease pic.twitter.com/0bRsF33y09

— CloudLinuxOS (@CloudLinuxOS) May 8, 2024

The main changes are as follows

• Kernel version: 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
• LVE kernel module: kmod-lve-2.1-27

Updated module and application versions

• Python 3.12
• Ruby 3.3
• PHP 8.2
• nginx 1.24
• MariaDB 10.11
• PostgreSQL 16

Updates relating to Git

• Git 2.43.0
• Git LFS 3.4.1

Updates to performance tools and debuggers

• Valgrind 3.22
• SystemTap 5.0
• elfutils 0.190

Updated performance monitoring tools

• PCP 6.2.0

Updated translation tools

• GCC Toolset 13
• LLVM Toolset 17.0.6
• Rust Toolset 1.75.1
• Go Toolset 1.21.7

Security updates

• Version 3.6 of SELinux userspace introduces ‘deny’ rules to allow for further customisation of SELinux policies.
• The Keylime server components – the verifier and the registrar – are available as containers.
• The Rsyslog log processing system introduces customisable TLS/SSL encryption settings and additional options relating to the discarding of permissions.
• The OpenSSL TLS toolkit adds a drop-in library for provider-specific configuration files.
• Version 1.4.0 of the Linux kernel’s cryptographic API (libkcapi) introduces new tools and options. The new -T option allows you to specify the names of target files in hash calculations.
• Version 5.71 of the stunnel TLS/SSL tunnelling service changes the behaviour of OpenSSL 1.1 and later versions in FIPS mode, and introduces a number of new features, such as support for modern PostgreSQL clients.

As with AlmaLinux 9.4, the following device drivers have been modified to reintroduce PCI identifiers for hardware that was previously disabled in the upstream (RHEL) system:

• 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
• hpsa – HP Smart Array Controller
• lpfc – Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel SCSI
• megaraid_sas – Broadcom MegaRAID SAS
• mpt3sas – LSI MPT Fusion SAS 3.0
• mptsas – Fusion MPT SAS Host
• qla2xxx – QLogic Fibre Channel HBA
• qla4xxx – QLogic iSCSI HBA

For a full list of the hardware support added in this release, see the ‘Extended hardware support’ section of the AlmaLinux 9.4 release notes.

As CloudLinux’s release versions and schedule follow those of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can find the full list of changes in the RHEL 9.4 release notes.

Installation and updates

CloudLinux OS 9.4 can be installed on a new server from an ISO image, or an existing AlmaLinux 9.4 server can be converted (see our article on installing CloudLinux OS). CloudLinux rolled out the update from version 9.3 gradually over a period of 10 days; anyone wishing to update earlier could do so as follows:

dnf --enablerepo=cloudlinux-rollout-2-bypass install cloudlinux-release
dnf update

About two weeks later, version 9.4 was added to the main repository; since then, running dnf update has been sufficient. PHP 8.2 can be enabled via the module system as follows; on cPanel hosting accounts, the PHP version for websites is managed separately by the CloudLinux PHP Selector:

dnf module reset php
dnf module install php:8.2

How long is it supported for?

CloudLinux OS 9 will receive updates until 31 May 2032 (see our article on the CloudLinux lifecycle). Further releases in the 9 series:

• CloudLinux OS 9 (January 2023)
• CloudLinux OS 9.2 (May 2023)
• CloudLinux OS 9.3 (November 2023)
• CloudLinux OS 9.5 (November 2024)
• CloudLinux OS 9.6 (May 2025)
• CloudLinux OS 9.7 (November 2025)
• CloudLinux OS 9.8 (May 2026)

Our cPanel hosting plans run on CloudLinux, and it can also be installed as an operating system on our KVM VPS servers.

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