Azure: issue upgrading to RHEL 8.8 (fixed)

Affected Products:

  • All ProComputers RHEL 8.7 and earlier images in Azure.

Opened: 2023-05-17

Severity: 2-Minor

Symptoms:
When running dnf update command, a NetworkManager package related error is returned:

[root@test-rhel8-vm ~]# dnf update
Last metadata expiration check: 0:02:50 ago on Wed 17 May 2023 07:11:49 PM UTC.
Error:
Problem 1: package NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64 requires NetworkManager = 1:1.40.0-6.el8_7, but none of the providers can be installed
- cannot install both NetworkManager-1:1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64 and NetworkManager-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64
- cannot install the best update candidate for package NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64
- cannot install the best update candidate for package NetworkManager-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64
Problem 2: problem with installed package NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64
- package NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64 requires NetworkManager-libnm(x86-64) = 1:1.40.0-6.el8_7, but none of the providers can be installed
- cannot install both NetworkManager-libnm-1:1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64 and NetworkManager-libnm-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64
- cannot install the best update candidate for package NetworkManager-libnm-1:1.40.0-6.el8_7.x86_64
(try to add ‘–allowerasing’ to command line to replace conflicting packages or ‘–skip-broken’ to skip uninstallable packages or ‘–nobest’ to use not only best candidate packages)
[root@test-rhel8-vm ~]#

Solution:
We believe the problem is due to the fact that NetworkManager-cloud-setup package version 1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64 is missing from the Azure RHUI (Red Hat Update Infrastructure).

[root@test-rhel8-vm ~]# dnf install NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64
Last metadata expiration check: 0:50:44 ago on Thu 18 May 2023 05:19:42 AM UTC.
No match for argument: NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64
Error: Unable to find a match: NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64
[root@test-rhel8-vm ~]#

We checked the RHEL 8.8 DVD iso image downloaded from Red Hat, and the package is available:

[root@test-rhel8-vm ~]# ls -la /media/AppStream/Packages/NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64.rpm
-r–r–r–. 112 root root 200828 Feb 27 08:26 /media/AppStream/Packages/NetworkManager-cloud-setup-1.40.16-1.el8.x86_64.rpm

We have opened a case with Azure RHUI support team, that is currently investing this issue.

As a workaround, to go ahead with RHEL 8.8 upgrade, you can use the following command, which should be executed successfully:

[root@test-rhel8-vm ~]# dnf update --exclude=“NetworkManager*”

Later, when the issue is fixed, you can separately upgrade the NetworkManager family of packages as well.

We’ll post here an update when this problem is fixed in Azure RHUI side.

If you still need support, please contact ProComputers Support as instructed in this article.

Update1: 2023-05-19
Azure RHUI support team has acknowledged the issue, and confirmed that they are working to re-sync the Azure RHUI repositories.

Update2: 2023-05-22
Azure RHUI team requires more time in order to fix the RHEL 8.8 repo sync issue. Meanwhile they have provided us with the following workaround that allows the full upgrade of all RHEL version 8.7 and earlier virtual machines to RHEL 8.8:

  1. Login in your RHEL version 8.7 and earlier virtual machine that you would like to upgrade, and execute the following commands:

$ sudo echo ‘40.85.190.91 rhui-1.microsoft.com rhui-2.microsoft.com rhui-3.microsoft.com’ >> /etc/hosts
$ sudo dnf clean all
$ sudo dnf update

The yum update command should be successful now.

Update3: 2023-05-23
As of today, this issue has been fixed by the Azure RHUI team, and the upgrade to RHEL 8.8 works properly.

For those that have applied the workaround specified at update1 above, you can simply run again the sudo dnf clean all; sudo dnf update command for a full upgrade to RHEL 8.8.

For those that have applied the workaround specified at update2 above, you can cleanup the /etc/hosts file by removing the line that includes 40.85.190.91 ip address, then run a sudo dnf clean all; sudo dnf update command as well.