June 29, 2021 Linux Lab Upgrade

On Tuesday, June 29, 2021, the EECS IT Staff will be upgrading the Hydra and Tesla Linux labs from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 to RHEL 8. The labs will be unavailable all day. Please note the following important items:

• All /local_scratch directories will be deleted and re-created. If you have any data you wish to preserve, please back it up before June 29.
• RHEL 8 introduces a number of changes including newer versions of common software such as Python, the GCC compilers, the Gnome desktop environment etc. For a list of changes, please see: https://help.eecs.utk.edu/knowledge-base/linux-topics/rhel8/whatisnew
• This change will only affect the Tesla and Hydra labs. The VNC virtual lab will be updated later this summer. We are not currently planning to update the VLSI virtual lab until 2022.

While we have tested many scenarios and use cases, it is likely that some of your current labs, programs, and procedures may need to be adjusted or that you find some software has changed or is missing. We ask that EECS faculty that use the Hydra or Tesla labs try logging into the systems after June 29 and run their most critical programs. Any problems should be reported to eecs-ithelp@utk.edu as soon as possible.

If you wish to try out a RHEL 8 system now, you can SSH into rhel8desktop.eecs.utk.edu. Additionally, if you are currently using an EECS IT-supported Linux desktop system and would like to schedule an upgrade to RHEL 8, please contact the EECS IT staff.