How to Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 Step by Step

Key takeaways

• RHEL 9 was released in May 2022 and uses kernel 5.14. RHEL 8 (May 2019, kernel 4.18) is a different release, and RHEL 10 is the current one. Older articles often mix these up.
• The installer is Anaconda. The Installation Summary screen is the hub: configure each item, then Begin Installation.
• RHEL 9 needs a CPU that supports the x86-64-v2 level. RHEL 10 raises this to x86-64-v3, which matters for old hardware and virtual machine CPU settings.
• Keep /boot as a standard partition, put the rest on LVM with XFS, and use swap as a swap area, not XFS.
• After installing, register the system, update it, and check SELinux and the firewall.

Which RHEL release should you install?

Install the release your course, exam or employer requires. If you are free to choose, RHEL 10 is the current major release, and RHCSA (EX200) is now based on RHEL 10. RHEL 9 is still fully supported and common in production. Each major release has a 10-year lifecycle: five years of full support followed by five years of maintenance support. Confirm the exact dates on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux life cycle page.

This guide installs RHEL 9. The steps for RHEL 8 and RHEL 10 are very close, and the differences are listed near the end. For RHEL 10 specifically, use our RHEL 10 installation guide.

What is new in RHEL 9 compared with RHEL 8?

This is a correction to older text that attributed RHEL 8 features to RHEL 9. Some features first arrived in RHEL 8 (released in 2019) and carry on in RHEL 9:

• Application Streams, which let languages and tools update on a different schedule from the base OS (introduced in RHEL 8).
• The container tools Podman, Buildah and Skopeo, in place of Docker (RHEL 8 onward).
• Cockpit as the web console, DNF as the package manager, Chrony in place of NTP, and nftables in place of iptables as the firewall back end (RHEL 8 onward).
• Stratis storage management and TLS 1.3 support (RHEL 8 onward).

RHEL 9 itself brought, among other things, kernel 5.14, a newer toolchain and stronger default cryptographic policies. See the Red Hat documentation for the full release notes of the exact minor version you install.

What do you need before you start?

• A Red Hat account. Red Hat offers a no-cost developer subscription for individual development and learning. Check the terms on the Red Hat Developer site. Companies use paid subscriptions.
• Hardware or a VM. A practical lab minimum is 2 CPUs, 4 GB RAM and 20 GB of disk. Red Hat publishes the formal minimum requirements for each release in its documentation, and they are lower than the lab figure. Our article on RHEL 10 hardware and software specifications shows how requirements differ.
• Supported architecture. RHEL 9 supports 64-bit x86 (AMD and Intel), 64-bit ARM, IBM Power (little endian) and IBM Z.
• A 64-bit CPU at x86-64-v2 or newer. Most CPUs from the last decade qualify. In VirtualBox, VMware or KVM, if the installer stops with a CPU error, set the VM's CPU model to pass through the host CPU features.
• A USB drive of at least 16 GB for the full DVD ISO, or a smaller one for the boot ISO (which installs over the network and needs a registered system or a repository URL).

Step-by-step: install RHEL 9

Step 1: Download the ISO

Sign in at the Red Hat Customer Portal (access.redhat.com), open Downloads, choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux and select version 9 for your architecture. For a first install, pick the full DVD ISO (the "Binary DVD"), which does not need a network during installation.

Verify the download. Compare the SHA-256 checksum shown on the download page with your file:

sha256sum rhel-9.*-x86_64-dvd.iso

On Windows, use certutil -hashfile file.iso SHA256. If the values differ, download again.

Step 2: Create bootable media

For a VM, attach the ISO to the virtual DVD drive and skip this step. For a physical machine, write the ISO to the USB drive with Fedora Media Writer, Rufus (choose DD mode if asked) or dd on Linux:

sudo dd if=rhel-9.x-x86_64-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

Replace /dev/sdX with your USB device. Check it with lsblk first, because writing to the wrong device destroys its data.

Step 3: Boot from the media

Restart the machine, open the boot menu (often F12, F10 or Esc) and pick the USB drive or DVD. At the boot menu choose Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. You can also choose Test this media and install to check the media first.

Step 4: Choose the language

Select the installation language and keyboard layout, then click Continue. You land on the Installation Summary screen, which has the items you must or may configure.

Step 5: Configure the installation destination

Click Installation Destination, tick the disk, and choose Automatic or Custom storage configuration.

• Automatic is fine for a first lab. It creates sensible LVM partitions.
• Custom is what you practise for RHCSA. Choose LVM as the scheme and add mount points.

A sample layout for a 60 GB lab disk:

Older versions of this guide put /boot on LVM and called swap an XFS file system. Both are wrong: /boot belongs on a standard partition, and swap has its own type. The default volume group name contains the hostname; you can rename it with Modify. Click Done, then Accept Changes.

Step 6: Set network and hostname

Click Network and Host Name, switch the interface on, and enter a hostname such as server1.example.com. If a DHCP server is present you will get an address automatically. For a fixed address, use Configure, then the IPv4 Settings tab and set Manual. Click Apply, then Done.

Step 7: Check time, software and security

• Time and Date: pick your region (for India, Asia/Kolkata). Network time can be switched on once the network is up.
• Software Selection: choose a base environment. Server with GUI suits learners; Server or Minimal Install suit production and exam practice.
• Security Profile: optional. Choose a compliance profile only if your organisation requires one.
• KDUMP: leave enabled unless you are short of memory in a small VM.

Step 8: Set the root password and create a user

Click Root Password. Either set a strong password, or choose Lock root account and make an administrator user instead. Then click User Creation and create a normal user, ticking Make this user administrator to give it sudo through the wheel group. By default root cannot log in over SSH with a password; enable that only if you need it for a lab.

Step 9: Begin installation

When every item on the summary has no warning mark, click Begin Installation. The installer copies packages, which takes from a few minutes to a quarter of an hour depending on the disk. When it finishes, click Reboot System and remove the installation media.

Step 10: First boot and registration

Accept the licence if the Initial Setup screen appears (on a GUI install). Log in, then register and update:

sudo subscription-manager register --username YOUR_RH_USERNAME
sudo subscription-manager attach --auto # needed only on older subscription modes
sudo dnf update -y

Replace the username with your own and enter your password when asked. Without registration you cannot get updates from Red Hat's repositories.

Check that the installation is healthy

cat /etc/redhat-release # shows the release, e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 9.x
uname -r # kernel version (5.14 series on RHEL 9)
hostnamectl # hostname, OS and kernel summary
getenforce # should print Enforcing
sudo firewall-cmd --state # should print running
lsblk # disks, partitions and LVM volumes
df -hT # file systems and types, XFS where expected
free -h # RAM and swap

SELinux in Enforcing mode and an active firewall are the defaults, and you should leave them on. Learn to work with them instead of disabling them, because they are examined in RHCSA.

Common problems and fixes

Differences between RHEL 8, 9 and 10 installs

• The Anaconda flow is the same in outline: language, installation summary, destination, software, users, install.
• Minimum CPU level rises from the older baseline in RHEL 8, to x86-64-v2 in RHEL 9, to x86-64-v3 in RHEL 10.
• Default package versions, cryptographic policy and some options on the summary screen change between releases, so use screenshots from the matching version.
• Do not install RHEL 8 or 9 images when a course or exam asks for RHEL 10.

Next steps

Take a snapshot of your new VM, then practise partitioning, LVM and user management on it. If you are preparing for the Red Hat exam, our RHCSA EX200 course works through these skills on RHEL 10. When you are ready for the current release, read Getting Started with RHEL 10.