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Upgrading#

NVIDIA and Red Hat provide updates to the OS in the form of updated software packages between releases with security mitigations and bug fixes.

Important

Please note this important information you need to know before upgrading:

  • An in-place upgrade from Red Hat Linux 9 to Red Hat Linux 10 with the DGX software stack installed is not supported.

  • Before you install or perform the upgrade, refer to the Release Notes section for the latest Red Hat Linux version, known issues, and workarounds.

    To remain at the same RHEL release and prevent incompatibility between Linux kernel and GPU drivers, pin the RHEL release by using the subscription-manager release --set=<release> command. For example, the subscription-manager release --set=10.0 command ties the system to RHEL 10.0.

You should evaluate the available updates in regular intervals and update the system by using the sudo dnf update --nobestcommand.

For a list of the known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), including those that can be resolved by updating the OS software, refer to the Red Hat Security Updates

Note

You are responsible for upgrading the software on the DGX system to install the updates from these sources.

If updates are available, you can obtain the package upgrades by running:

sudo dnf update -nobest

Upgrades to the NVIDIA Graphics Drivers for Linux requires a restart to complete the kernel upgrade. If you upgrade the NVIDIA Graphics Drivers for Linux without restarting the DGX system the nvidia-smicommand may fail. An error message may be displayed, such as the one below.

nvidia-smi
Failed to initialize NVML: Driver/library version mismatch

Upgrading the OS and DGX Software#

This section provides information for upgrading your DGX system and optionally upgrading to a different GPU branch.

Upgrading the Software without Moving to a New Driver Branch#

To upgrade your DGX system with the latest Red Hat Linux upgrades, run the following commands:

sudo dnf update -y --nobest

sudo reboot

Installing or Upgrading to a Newer CUDA Toolkit Release#

Important

Before you install or upgrade to any CUDA Toolkit release, ensure the release is compatible with the driver that is installed on the system. Refer to CUDA Compatibility for more information and a compatibility matrix.

The CUDA Toolkit is not installed by default. You can manually install a qualified CUDA Toolkit release.

All CUDA Toolkit releases are supported that interoperate with the installed GPU driver. Refer to the release notes to see CUDA Toolkit current release versions.

Checking the Currently Installed CUDA Toolkit Release#

Here is some information about the prerequisite to determine the CUDA Toolkit release that you currently have installed.

Important

The CUDA Toolkit is not installed on DGX servers by default, and if you try to run the following command, no installed package will be listed

Before you install a new CUDA Toolkit release run the following command to check the currently installed release:

sudo dnf list installed "cuda-toolkit-*"

Here is an example of output from the above command showing that CUDA Toolkit 13.0 is installed.

Updating Subscription Management repositories.

This system has release set to 10.0 and it receives updates only for this release.

Installed Packages
cuda-toolkit-13.x86_64                             13.0.2-1              @CUDA
cuda-toolkit-13-0.x86_64                           13.0.2-1              @CUDA
cuda-toolkit-13-0-config-common.noarch             13.0.96-1             @CUDA
cuda-toolkit-13-config-common.noarch               13.0.96-1             @CUDA
cuda-toolkit-config-common.noarch                  13.0.96-1             @CUDA

Determining the New Available CUDA Toolkit Releases#

These steps help you determine which new CUDA Toolkit releases are available. To see the new available CUDA Toolkit releases:

sudo dnf search "cuda-toolkit-*"
Updating Subscription Management repositories.

This system has release set to 10.0 and it receives updates only for this release.

Last metadata expiration check: 0:10:12 ago on Mon 13 Oct 2025 12:00:25 PM PDT.
================================================= Name Matched: cuda-toolkit-* =================================================
cuda-toolkit-13.x86_64 : CUDA Toolkit 13 meta-package
cuda-toolkit-13-0.x86_64 : CUDA Toolkit 13.0 meta-package
cuda-toolkit-13-0-config-common.noarch : Common config package for CUDA Toolkit 13.0.
cuda-toolkit-13-config-common.noarch : Common config package for CUDA Toolkit

The output shows that 13.0 is currently the only possible CUDA Toolkit version that can be installed.

Installing the CUDA Toolkit or Upgrading Your CUDA Toolkit to a Newer Release#

You can install or upgrade your CUDA Toolkit to a newer release.

To install or upgrade the CUDA Toolkit, run the following command:

sudo dnf install cuda-toolkit-13-0

Note

Version 13.0 is shown as an example - replace the value with the version you want to install.

Installing GPUDirect Storage Support#

NVIDIA® Magnum IO GPUDirect® Storage (GDS) enables a direct data path for direct memory access (DMA) transfers between GPU memory and storage, which avoids a bounce buffer through the CPU.

Installing nvidia-gds#

To use GDS, perform the following steps:

  1. Install nvidia-gdswith the correct dependencies:

    sudo install nvidia-gds-{ver}

Use the CUDA Toolkit version number in place of <ver>; for example, 13-0