RHEL 9 guest panic's during boot with following error "Fatal glibc error: CPU does not support x86-64-v2"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

•  upgrading, installing, or creating a Red Hat VM from a template. The guest OS VM fails during boot with the following error message:
  
  "Fatal glibc error: CPU does not support x86-64-v2"

• RHEL 7 and 8 Virtual Machine works on the same platform and works on a cluster where EVC is disabled 

 

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.x

VMware ESXi 8.x 

Cause

This is a third party compatibility issue, not a VMware issue.

Ref: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/6833751 

This error happens when the virtual hardware doesn't have the CPU requirements to run RHEL 9.

Usually it will happen if attempted to run the RHEL9 on older hardware or upgrading a VM that was live migrated from an older host (where it obtained an older EVC level) to a newer host but didn't get the power cycle to obtain the new CPU features and new EVC level required to RHEL9 (Older models such as Merom and Penryn do not provide the minimum requirements of RHEL9).

 

Resolution

• Make sure the hardware is compatible with newer EVC levels.
• Disable or adjust the EVC mode observing possible mixed hardware in the same cluster in a way that the VM will run in a supported host.
• Power cycle the VM to obtain the correct EVC level.

Additional Information

Check the correct EVC level for the VM on: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/313545/ 

Note that the issue is related to third party and the Red Hat link requires login to access.