Introduction

During a QRadar version upgrade on RHEL 7-based appliances, the installer may fail during the package validation phase with a failed Yum transaction test.

This issue is caused by an incompatible yum.conf configuration and can prevent the upgrade from proceeding until corrected.

Version-Specific Issue

This troubleshooting guide applies only to QRadar appliances running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7).

Systems that have already migrated to RHEL 8 do not use this configuration and are not affected by this issue.

Symptoms

The upgrade fails with an error similar to the following:

[ERROR] (-i-testmode) sql pretest errored, halting.
[6/9] Install & Upgrade Packages failed to complete successfully.

Errors:
Failed yum transaction test

Cause

On some RHEL 7 systems, the yum configuration option clean_requirements_on_remove is enabled.

When this value is set to 1, the QRadar upgrade package validation may fail during the Yum transaction test.

Resolution

Verify the Current Configuration

Display the current Yum configuration.

cat /etc/yum.conf

If the following setting is present, it is likely causing the issue.

clean_requirements_on_remove=1

Update the Configuration

Edit the Yum configuration file.

vim /etc/yum.conf

Change the setting from:

clean_requirements_on_remove=1

to:

clean_requirements_on_remove=0

Save the file.

If your deployment includes managed hosts, make the same change on each affected RHEL 7 appliance before continuing the upgrade.

Field Note

In distributed QRadar deployments, all managed hosts participating in the upgrade should have consistent yum.conf settings to avoid package validation failures during the upgrade process.

Retry the Upgrade

After updating the configuration on all applicable hosts, rerun the QRadar upgrade.

Verification

Verify the following:

• clean_requirements_on_remove is set to 0 on all RHEL 7 appliances.
• The Yum transaction test completes successfully.
• The QRadar upgrade proceeds past the package installation phase without errors.

If the Problem Persists

If the upgrade continues to fail:

• Verify the configuration change was made on every managed host participating in the upgrade.
• Confirm no additional Yum configuration changes have been introduced by your organization.
• Review the upgrade logs for additional package dependency or repository errors.
• Verify that all required repositories are available and synchronized before rerunning the upgrade.

Additional Resources

• IBM QRadar Upgrade Documentation
• IBM QRadar System Requirements
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Yum Documentation