RHEL 9.7

[jbreckel]

Would like to know when the Linux Agent for RHEL 9.7 is going to be released? It seems that there is a significant lag time between when Red Hat new version is released and when Veeam has a supporting agent. Thanks

[Gostev]

Since it was literally just released, we do not know yet if there are any breaking changes, while time to support depends mostly on that.

In general, our target for new OS and platform version support is 90 days which is driven by the fact that release vehicle for new platforms support are maintenance releases which follow approximately quarterly cadence. Further, for Enterprise offerings like RHEL we often also provide a patch even before the next maintenance release is available.

@PMs please create a sticky FAQ topic that explains the previous paragraph.

[SebCharp]

Case ID: #07889232

Hello,

After upgrading my RHEL server from 9.6 to 9.7, Veeam Agent for Linux stopped working.
Backups now fail with the following error:

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failed to create volume snapshot

System information

• OS: RHEL 9.7
• Kernel: 5.14.0-611.7.1.el9_7.x86_64
• Veeam package: veeam-6.3.2.1225-1.el9.x86_64
• Snapshot module: kmod-blksnap-6.3.2.1225-1.el9.x86_64 (installed)

Issue
Even though the kmod package is installed, the kernel module cannot be loaded:

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modprobe blksnap
modprobe: FATAL: Module blksnap not found in directory /lib/modules/5.14.0-611.7.1.el9_7.x86_64

`lsmod` shows nothing, and `dkms status` shows no modules.

Attempting to reinstall:

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dnf install kmod-blksnap veeam --allowerasing

Results in:

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Nothing to do. Packages already installed.

Symptoms

• The blksnap kernel module is not present under /lib/modules/<kernel>/
• Therefore the module cannot be loaded
• Snapshot creation fails with "failed to create volume snapshot"

My understanding
According to the official documentation, Veeam Agent 6.3.2 supports RHEL releases up to 9.6.
It seems that RHEL 9.7 (kernel 5.14.0-611.x) may not yet be supported, or the corresponding blksnap kmod build is missing.

Question
Is RHEL 9.7 supported by Veeam Agent for Linux 6.3.2?
If not, is there a timeline for an updated kmod-blksnap compatible with this kernel?

Additional note
I'm not sure whether the forum is the right place for this issue. Anyway, I opened a support ticket.
Any guidance would be appreciated.
I have already read the following threads: [FAQ] When Will Latest OS Version Be Supported? and RHEL 9.7
I understand that new distributions and kernels may require some time before official support is added.
I simply assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that with the CentOS Stream model being ahead of RHEL, the compatible blksnap module might already be ready by the time RHEL 9.7 was released.
This is not a complaint — just trying to understand whether my issue is expected behavior or if something is misconfigured on my side.

[Gostev]

The answer is no, it's not supported and there's no timeline yet, as explained above.

Please do not create duplicate discussions in future.

[SebCharp]

Hello Gostev,
I’m really sorry for the duplicate post. I had checked the forum last week, but I didn’t look again this morning before writing my message. I was focused on figuring out what I had done wrong for my backups to stop working.

I still think my question regarding CentOS Stream is relevant: doesn’t Veeam rely on the Stream repository in order to be ready more quickly when the official RHEL release comes out?
I’m asking so I can avoid making the same mistake again (upgrading a kernel before checking whether it is supported by Veeam).

I hope to get some clarification, and again, sorry for the duplicate.

[Gostev]

We don't support CentOS Stream at all, therefore we don't rely on its repository.

[SebCharp]

Thanks for answering.

[gothaggis]

I hope that Veeam understands that not having a release for up to 90 days can be very challenging for teams. In this day and age, where servers must be patched at an almost weekly schedule to keep up with security vulnerabilities, it is quite the ask to not be able to patch servers for up to 90 days due to a new RHEL point release. I understand that 9.6 has EUS repos available, but not everyone has the ability to eat the extra cost for EUS if their subscription does not include it. Luckily I am keeping my servers on 9.6 EUS, but have felt this pain before.

[thermans]

Hello,

I'm jumping in here because we're currently experiencing the same issue with a newly set up machine that received RHEL 9.7, and the Veeam agent isn't working.
We also have to patch our systems monthly, and that always involves installing the latest packages from the Red Hat repositories, including the newest kernel.
Therefore, it would be helpful to know what timeframe we can expect until an update to the Veeam Linux agent for B&R-12 is available that supports RHEL 9.7.

This won't be the last upgrade for RHEL 9; according to the support matrix, 9.10 will be the final version, including long-term support.

[Gostev]

Hi, please note that VBR V12 uses VAL V6. Going forward this version will no longer be receiving new features or support for new OS versions, because it's not the current version. So please plan to upgrade your VBR to V13 sometimes soon, this will come with matching VAL V13 (current version) which will be actively maintained to include support for future OS releases.

We do not have a timeframe yet as it depends how much changes are required in our code. Team has been actively looking at RHEL 9.7 and we should know within the next few days. Usually little changes are required, however once upon a time (many years ago) one such update has suddenly disabled a key function in kernel, and this required us to pretty much rewrite the entire product, which of course took a very long time.

Thanks

[rovshan.pashayev]

Hi All,

The changes required were minor so the patches for Veeam Agent for Linux v6.3.2 to support RHEL 9.7 and 10.1 are now available.
Please refer to https://www.veeam.com/kb2804 for details.

[SebCharp]

Great. That’s excellent news. Thanks for the info!
I’ll apply this patch on my RHEL 9.7 servers.

[thermans]

Very good – I also received the email from support this morning. That was very quick. Thank you!

[ferrus]

What's the version number for the patch?
The patch that's linked in the KB article is version 6.3.2.1207-1, but that version number also exists on the server from earlier in the year in both patch and agent releases.

[rovshan.pashayev]

Hello,

Yes, version is the same, but patch files, which you are downloading from the https://my.veeam.com/my-products/updates, are named kmod-blksnap-patch-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm and kmod-blksnap-patch-6.3.2.1207-1.el10.x86_64.rpm

[SebCharp]

Hi everyone!

I’ve installed the 6.3.2.1207 patch for Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.3.2.4165, and it seems to be working fine for my backups so far. However, I’m a bit confused because the inventory keeps warning me that my Linux agent isn’t up to date. Apparently, the latest agent version is actually 6.3.2.1225, and it looks like the patch Veeam provided didn’t include that very latest agent update.

So, I’m not exactly sure what the recommended procedure is to avoid this warning or to handle the agent version mismatch. If anyone has a bit of wisdom to share on the best way to proceed and keep things happy, I’d really appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

[rovshan.pashayev]

Hi @SebCharp

Veeam Backup & Replication v12.3.2.4165 doesn’t include Veeam Agent for Linux 6.3.2.1225 – that build was a separate release.
The best next step is to open a support case.
Support team will need logs and the XML file to check what’s causing the mismatch and advise the right fix.

[SebCharp]

Hi @rovshan.pashayev

Thanks. I don’t understand what happened. I’m not sure if I can open a support ticket since this issue is on our VEEAM Community Edition, which we use for testing before going into production.

[rovshan.pashayev]

Hi,

Yes, you can; free license customers have support via web or email only on a best effort basis.
Just share case number here for reference.

[SebCharp]

Perfect, thanks!
I’ve opened a support ticket. Here is the case number: #07917450.

[SebCharp]

After re-reading the documentation more carefully, I realized I initially overlooked the ValPackageIndex.xml file.
So here's what I did to resolve the issue:

I compared our production Veeam environment with our community edition test environment.
For some unknown reason, the production setup stayed on the Linux agent version 6.3.2.1207, while the test environment somehow updated itself to 6.3.2.1225.

To fix it, I edited the ValPackageIndex.xml file on the community edition test server (section -- EL9 --). I copied the relevant sections for RHEL 9 and Rocky 9 from our production Veeam environment to the test one. I also copied the missing RPM files from the production server to the test server:

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blksnap-6.3.2.1207-1.noarch.rpm
blksnap-ueficert-6.3.2.1207-1.noarch.rpm
kmod-blksnap-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
veeam-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
veeam-libs-6.3.2.1207-1.x86_64.rpm
veeam-nosnap-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
blksnap-6.3.2.1207-1.noarch.rpm.manifest.xml
blksnap-ueficert-6.3.2.1207-1.noarch.rpm.manifest.xml
kmod-blksnap-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm.manifest.xml
veeam-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm.manifest.xml
veeam-libs-6.3.2.1207-1.x86_64.rpm.manifest.xml
veeam-nosnap-6.3.2.1207-1.el9.x86_64.rpm.manifest.xml

After doing that, when I ran an inventory rescan on the test environment, it correctly detected the patch and installed it automatically.
Now my backups are working again and the issue seems resolved on my end!


That said, I’m not entirely sure why the test environment jumped to 1225 instead of staying on 1207 like the production one.