Unraid 7.3.0-rc.1 Now Available

The first release candidate of Unraid OS 7.3 is out, and it's a big one. 7.3 is two betas in, and we wanted to get an RC into tester's hands ASAP. If you've been holding off trying the betas, this is a good moment to jump in.

As always: this is release candidate software. Please run it on a test server, not production.

The Big Picture

7.3 is the release where a lot of long-running projects finally land together. New users get a proper guided setup for the first time. Internal boot ships as a first-class option alongside the traditional USB flash drive. Licensing gets a more reliable foundation via TPM. Docker jumps from v27 to v29 patching a number of CVEs, and we have a fix for the MAC-address churn that comes with it. ZFS, storage, File Manager, and hardware support all get meaningful upgrades. And under the hood, we're on Linux kernel 6.18.23, QEMU 10.2.2, and libvirt 12.2.0.

Here's what's worth knowing.

Onboarding and Internal Boot

First-time setup now runs through a proper onboarding wizard: language, time zone, theme, activation code, and boot option all in one guided flow. If you're an existing user, you can revisit it any time under Tools → Onboarding Wizard, which is also the path to migrate an existing install to internal boot.

Internal boot itself gets promoted to a distinct option, with dedicated boot pool support separate from split boot pools. We've also cleaned up the language throughout. What used to be "Flash" is now "Boot" in most places, because your boot device doesn't have to be a flash drive anymore.

A handful of smaller fixes here are worth calling out: the New Config tool now handles boot pools correctly, pools that were previously configured as boot pools can be removed cleanly, and the boot pool stays visible when a disk is missing or the wrong one is selected so you can actually recover from that state.

One caveat for testers: internal boot requires boot storage accessible by in-tree Linux drivers at startup. If your boot device needs a third-party driver or post-boot configuration, it's not eligible.

TPM-based Licensing

If your system was built in 2019 or later, there's a good chance your board already supports TPM 2.0 through firmware with no dedicated chip required, while many older boards that don't have onboard TPM include a header where an inexpensive TPM 2.0 module can be added. New users don't have to pick up front: if a TPM 2.0 chip is detected, your trial or license is tied to it automatically even if setup begins from a flash drive, and if TPM isn't available, Unraid falls back to traditional flash-based licensing.

For existing users, this is a choice, not a requirement. It's also worth being clear that Internal Boot and licensing are separate decisions: you can boot internally and keep your flash drive as the licensing anchor, or boot internally and use TPM — whichever fits your hardware. That matters especially on older systems without TPM, which can still get the full reliability benefits of Internal Boot while keeping a licensed flash device connected.

Docker: v27 to v29

Docker is now at 29.3.1, and this is the change most users will feel. Docker 29 changes how MAC addresses are allocated to containers, which means they get randomized on the upgrade. If you rely on stable container MACs — DHCP reservations, router rules, firewall ACLs, switch ACLs, monitoring — you need to know about this.

The good news is that 7.3 adds a new fixed MAC address field directly to Docker templates, so you can lock in the identity you want rather than chasing whatever Docker assigns. Advanced View on the Docker page now shows live container MACs alongside the existing network and IP info, which makes reconciling what you had with what you have much easier.

Moving from v27 to v29.3.1 also pulls in a meaningful set of Docker CVE patches including runc fixes for CVE-2025-31133, CVE-2025-52565, and CVE-2025-52881.

Storage and ZFS

ZFS gets a couple of quality-of-life wins. Corrupted files now show up in ZFS pool status, so you can actually see what's gone wrong without dropping to the CLI. The zfs_arc_max tunable moves out of custom driver parameters and into a proper user-facing control at Settings → Disk Settings → Tunable. If you were setting this the old way, you'll want to migrate it to the new location.

On the storage fixes side:

• 4Kn and 512e sector-size compatibility regressions affecting XFS-formatted array disks and some LSI HBA setups are addressed.
• 4Kn XFS disks formatted on 7.3.0-beta.1 or later can be moved out of the array and mounted normally in pools or other Linux systems. Older XFS filesystems formatted inside the array on 4Kn disks in previous Unraid releases still need a reformat.
• Drives no longer spin down mid-parity-copy during a parity swap.
• Mover availability is corrected when emptying an array disk with no pool assigned.
• ZFS pools no longer wake once every 24 hours in affected cases.
• Pool-device detection now handles larger device names like sdp and sdap correctly, so affected pool disks stop showing up as Unknown.

Duplicate-drive detection and pool/drive health visibility also got a pass.

File Manager

File Manager gets a round of polish — UI improvements, better performance, smoother same-filesystem moves, and better upload behavior. The specific fixes worth mentioning: paths containing /sub/ are handled correctly, scrollbars don't fight you during copy/move, directory names with double quotes work, move/rename edge cases are cleaned up, and empty directories are preserved during affected rename operations. The theme glitch on the Main tab is also fixed.

WebGUI and system

A long list of smaller fixes, but several are worth calling out:

• Syslinux and GRUB configuration files with CRLF line endings are now readable by the Boot Parameters page — so if you edit them from Windows, they just work.
• RAM display parsing is corrected after a dmidecode unit-label change.
• The Bind selected to vfio action is restored in System Devices on affected setups.
• WebGUI and API requests no longer spin up the full HDD array on affected systems.
• CPU isolation saving is fixed — selected cores actually apply again.
• The built-in rclone configuration now persists across reboot in a proper location.
• Strict proxy connectivity checks behave correctly when using HTTP proxies that block CONNECT on port 80.
• Discord notification formatting issues are fixed.
• The SSH daemon auto-restarts after network recovery.

We also added support for the Cooler Master Qube 500 case model.

Hardware and networking

The kernel config picks up additional AMD XDNA and ACP support (CONFIG_DRM_ACCEL_AMDXDNA, CONFIG_DRM_AMD_ACP, CONFIG_REMOTEPROC, generic power-domain support, CONFIG_REMOTEPROC_CDEV), and we've bundled AMD NPU firmware, Intel Bluetooth firmware, Intel wireless firmware, and the amdxdna kernel module. There's also a new Settings → Tailscale stub page to make the plugin easier to discover.

Virtualization

QEMU is now 10.2.2, libvirt is 12.2.0, and the OVMF firmware package has been refreshed. The virtiofs hang some Linux guests were seeing is fixed, VM snapshot commit cleanup now updates snapshot metadata correctly, and the libvirt startup issues seen during testing are addressed. System Devices visibility, VM template workflows, and custom VNC port validation all got improvements. One small but welcome fix: VMs created from user-defined templates no longer inherit the source VM's MAC address.

Known Issues

A few things are worth being aware of before you upgrade a test box:

• During internal boot setup, the WebGUI may briefly show Array Offline while internal boot configures itself. Do not manually restart or remove your flash drive during this process.
• Internal boot requires boot storage accessible by in-tree Linux drivers during startup — third-party drivers or post-boot configuration won't work.
• ZFS boot pool device changes generally work correctly, but one edge case: if you start with a dedicated boot pool made from two small devices and replace them one at a time with larger devices, the pool may convert to a split pool.
• When boot-pool devices are added, removed, or replaced, Unraid doesn't currently update BIOS boot priority automatically. Verify your BIOS boot order manually after those changes.

Other testers' reported issues are tracked in the prerelease bugs and feedback thread.

Rolling back

• If you've already enabled internal boot or switched to TPM-based licensing while testing the 7.3 prerelease, you can roll back to 7.3.0-beta.1 without issue.
• Do not roll back to 7.2.4 or earlier after enabling internal boot or TPM-based licensing.
• If you upgrade ZFS pool features, earlier Unraid releases may not be able to import those pools.
• Follow the normal prerelease rollback process before moving between builds.
• If you're considering any rollback path below 7.3.0-beta.1, also review the 7.2.4 release notes.

Reporting issues

Please report anything you find in the Unraid OS Prerelease (Bugs & Feedback) forum. The more detail you can include — hardware, steps to reproduce, relevant logs — the better. Thanks for testing.