Unraid 7.3.0-rc.2 Now Available

If you tested rc.1, or have been waiting to jump into the 7.3 prerelease, this is a good build to be on. If you find bugs, we sincerely appreciate reporting them on our bug tracker. 

As always: please run it on a test server, not production.

The Big Picture

RC.2 is a polish and fixes release before we go Stable. It expands internal boot driver coverage to more hardware, resolves several ZFS and boot-pool edge cases from rc.1 testing, fixes VM startup issues with older machine types, updates Docker to 29.4.1, and includes WebGUI security hardening.

Internal Boot: Expanded Driver Support

rc.1 supported internal boot devices accessible through nvme, ahci, mmc, and mpt3sas. rc.2 adds mvsas and smartpqi to that list. If your boot storage connects through one of those controllers, internal boot is now an option.

For more info around Internal Boot, see the Internal Boot FAQ.

Storage and ZFS

Several ZFS pool and boot-pool edge cases are addressed in rc.2.

The ZFS pool replacement workflow is fixed. Previously, when a dropped device was marked REMOVED, the replacement process could leave the pool degraded with a stale blue new-device state or trigger repeated overwrite warnings.

Boot-pool detection after device replacement is also improved. If you started with a dedicated boot pool and replaced devices with larger ones, Unraid now correctly identifies the resulting pool configuration as dedicated or split.

Adding a device to a formatted split boot pool now works when the data partition is formatted as ZFS or BTRFS.

We also added a check that prevents creating ZFS pools with names starting with reserved ZFS prefixes: mirror, raidz, draid, and spare. These names cause failures downstream, and Unraid now blocks them at creation time.

An md/unraid driver crash is also fixed. 

Virtualization

Deprecated VM machine types are now updated automatically during startup. If you had older VMs failing with unsupported QEMU machine-type errors after upgrading to rc.1, those should start cleanly on rc.2.

The Unraid UEFI logo is restored for VMs. It had gone missing in earlier 7.3 builds.

When using Virtio 3D, the assigned RenderGPU now displays correctly for the first VM in the VM list.

Docker: 29.4.1

Docker is updated from 29.3.1 (rc.1) to 29.4.1. If you're upgrading from rc.1, the MAC address behavior and fixed MAC field from rc.1 are unchanged.

WebGUI and System

Adding containers from the Add Container page no longer causes the WebGUI to become unresponsive. A hang some testers hit in rc.1 is fixed.

Stale status display after storage replacement workflows is corrected, so pool and device state reads accurately once a replacement completes.

The chassis serial number now appears in System Info when a valid chassis serial is available from the system firmware.

Security

rc.2 includes WebGUI security hardening for authenticated-session request handling. The 7.3 kernel also contains the fix for CVE-2026-31431, the Copy Fail local privilege escalation vulnerability.

Licensing

TPM-based license replacement blacklist handling is improved. Previously, transferring a TPM-based license key could permanently block the underlying motherboard GUID from future valid activations. A transferred key is now blocked without locking out the board itself.

Known Issues

• During internal boot setup, the WebGUI may briefly show Array Offline while internal boot configures. Do not manually restart or remove your flash drive during this process.
• Internal boot requires boot storage accessible by built-in Linux drivers at startup. rc.2 adds mvsas and smartpqi, but devices requiring third-party drivers or post-boot configuration are not supported.
• Some invalid ZFS pool names beginning with reserved ZFS prefixes may fail without a clear WebGUI error. If pool creation does not complete, try a different name.
• If a split boot-pool device is removed and another is added immediately afterward, the slot count may not update until the server is rebooted.

Rolling Back

• If you have already enabled internal boot or switched to TPM-based licensing while testing the 7.3 prerelease, you can roll back to 7.3.0-rc.1 without issue.
• Do not roll back to 7.2.5 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 are considering any rollback path below 7.3.0-rc.1, also review the 7.2.4 release notes.