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Rocky Linux 8.9 was officially released on 22 November 2023. This version supports the x86-64 and aarch64 architectures and uses the 4.18.0-513.5.1 kernel. It is worth reading through the release notes in the Rocky Linux documentation, as they contain important details about known issues and significant changes.
Important changes
- The Azure images for Rocky Linux 8.9 will be released with a new release name: resf, replacing the previous long, unreadable name. These images are not yet publicly available, but are expected to be available by the end of the week and will be accompanied by a further newsletter.
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The set of optional guest agents, which was previously available within the Anaconda Minimal Install and Custom Operating System environments, is no longer available as optional software for these environments. It remains available in the Server and Server with GUI environments, and can be added after a minimal installation as follows:
dnf install @guest-agents - Problems arose with the Rocky Linux 8.9 KDE live image during the testing phase. As a result, the Rocky Linux team will be providing the older 8.8 images until they are able to produce a working image.
Noteworthy new features and changes
- java-21-openjdk has been introduced, providing the latest version of Java.
- Node.js is now available as a series of 20 new modules
- The gcc-toolset-13 has been introduced as a new compiler toolset, whilst the LLVM Toolset has been updated to version 16.0.6, the Rust Toolset to version 1.71.1 and the Go Toolset to version 1.20.6.
- OpenSCAP has been updated to version 1.3.8, the ANSSI-BP-028 SCAP profiles have been updated to version 2.0, and the DISA STIG profile now supports the
audit_rules_login_events_faillockrule. - The AWS EC2 AMD/Intel 64-bit AMI supports UEFI boot as well as the legacy BIOS (
boot-mode: uefi-preferred). - Valgrind (3.21), SystemTap (4.9), elfutils (0.189) and Grafana (9.2.10) have been updated.
ISO verification
Once you have downloaded the 8.9 installation ISOs (Rocky-8.9-x86_64-boot.iso, -minimal.iso, -dvd1.iso/-dvd.iso), it is worth checking them. In the folder where you saved the ISOs:
curl -O https://dl.rockylinux.org/vault/rocky/8.9/isos/x86_64/CHECKSUM
sha256sum -c CHECKSUM --ignore-missing
The command compares the ISO files in the folder with the CHECKSUM file and returns an ‘OK’ result next to the downloaded image file. The packages are signed by the Rocky Linux 8 GPG key (RPM-GPG-KEY-Rocky-8, fingerprint: 7051 C470 A929 F454 CEBE 37B7 15AF 5DAC 6D74 5A60), which dnf automatically verifies after installation.
Update and migration
An existing Rocky Linux 8 system can be updated using the usual command:
sudo dnf -y upgrade
Rocky Linux only ever supports the latest point release of each major release, so the command now updates to the latest release in the 8 series. You can migrate from other Enterprise Linux 8 distributions (AlmaLinux, CentOS, Oracle Linux, RHEL) using the migrate2rocky script.
Rocky Linux does not officially support in-place upgrades between major versions; it recommends a fresh installation for the 9 series. However, the community-developed ELevate tool can be used to perform an 8 → 9 upgrade; the steps are described in our guide ‘Upgrading AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux from 8 to 9 using ELevate’.
How long is it supported for?
Active support for Rocky Linux 8 (“Green Obsidian”) lasted until 31 May 2024, and its lifecycle ends on 31 May 2029. Only the latest point release receives updates. Further releases in the 8 series:
- Rocky Linux 8.6 (May 2022)
- Rocky Linux 8.7 (November 2022)
- Rocky Linux 8.8 (May 2023)
- Rocky Linux 8.10 (May 2024, the final minor release in the series)
If you’d like to run Rocky Linux on your own server, you can also order a KVM VPS or a dedicated server with it.