Red Hat kernel 2.4.21-47.EL to 2.4.21-47.0.1.EL upgrade notesEdit

Created , updated

Here are some notes that I made while performing the kernel upgrade on my Red Hat box from version 2.4.21-47.EL to 2.4.21-47.0.1.EL. These are based on the general upgrade procedure described in the article, Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel update procedure.

$ sudo -s
# uptime
 08:46:27  up 92 days, 21:28,  1 user,  load average: 0.02, 0.15, 0.08
# up2date --list

Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-es-3...

Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-es-3-extras...

Fetching rpm headers...

Name                                    Version        Rel
----------------------------------------------------------

The following Packages were marked to be skipped by your configuration:

Name                                    Version        Rel  Reason
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kernel                                  2.4.21         47.0.1.ELPkg name/pattern
kernel-doc                              2.4.21         47.0.1.ELPkg name/pattern
kernel-source                           2.4.21         47.0.1.ELPkg name/pattern

There were no non-kernel RPMs to update, so I skipped the up2date --nox -u step.

# uname -a
Linux s69819.example.com 2.4.21-47.EL #1 Wed Jul 5 20:39:00 EDT 2006 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update 8)
# ls -laF /boot
# up2date --nox -u
# rpm -qa | grep -i kernel
kernel-2.4.21-32.0.1.EL
kernel-2.4.21-40.EL
kernel-source-2.4.21-47.EL
kernel-2.4.21-37.0.1.EL
kernel-utils-2.4-8.37.15
kernel-doc-2.4.21-47.EL
kernel-2.4.21-47.EL
# up2date -uf kernel kernel-doc kernel-source

Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-es-3...

Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-es-3-extras...

Name                                    Version        Rel
----------------------------------------------------------
kernel                                  2.4.21         47.0.1.EL         athlon
kernel-doc                              2.4.21         47.0.1.EL         i386
kernel-source                           2.4.21         47.0.1.EL         i386


Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies...
########################################
kernel-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL.ath ########################## Done.
kernel-doc-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL ########################## Done.
kernel-source-2.4.21-47.0.1 ########################## Done.
Preparing              ########################################### [100%]

Installing...
   1:kernel-source          ########################################### [100%]
   2:kernel                 ########################################### [100%]
   3:kernel-doc             ########################################### [100%]
# rpm -qa | grep -i kernel
kernel-2.4.21-32.0.1.EL
kernel-2.4.21-40.EL
kernel-doc-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
kernel-2.4.21-37.0.1.EL
kernel-utils-2.4-8.37.15
kernel-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
kernel-2.4.21-47.EL
kernel-source-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
# ls -laF /boot
# cat /boot/grub/grub.conf

I then edited the grub.conf file to delete the last three groups (pertaining to old versions of the kernel), leaving behind only the newly installed version and the previous version. I then deleted the files corresponding to the old versions that were deleted from grub.conf:

# rm -i /boot/*-32.0.1.EL*
# rm -i /boot/*-37.0.1.EL*
# rm -i /boot/*-40.EL*
# reboot

Note on removing old versions of the kernel

I later realized that additional modules are installed with each kernel in /lib/modules/ and that the rpm tool could have been used to remove all of these files in one go:

$ rpm -e kernel-2.4.21-40.EL
$ rpm -e kernel-2.4.21-37.0.1.EL
$ rpm -e kernel-2.4.21-32.0.1.EL

Post install checks

$ uptime
 09:07:56  up 1 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.77, 0.25, 0.09
$ uname -a
Linux s69819.example.com 2.4.21-47.0.1.EL #1 Fri Oct 13 17:55:16 EDT 2006 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update 8)

Check that critical services are running (Bansshee, FTP, HTTP, MySQL, Mailman, clamd, IMAP, ipop3, svn, sendmail, xinetd, webmin etc):

$ sudo service --status-all
$ sudo chkconfig --list

Confirm that up2date is now satisfied:

$ sudo up2date --list

Summary

A successful update. Service down time was approximately 71 seconds (as measured with ping).