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RPM Kernel Upgrade

Posted January 9th, 2007 by eth00

This is a very simple guide meant for people unfamiliar with upgrading kernels on a linux system. It is fairly simple to follow and I have done this on many servers so if you take your time and read though it you should have no problem. I take no responsibility if something goes wrong on your server because of this! This guide is formated for a RHEL server but if you understand the concept it can be applied to any rpm kernel.

Updated August with new versions


The kernel versions are constantly changing so this guide may fall out of date from time to time. The important thing to remember is when you are doing the up2date --download simply look at the version that is downloaded. That is going to be the latest version and in turn the version you want to install and boot to. RHEL or CentOS 5 follow the same basic method.



If you are using CentOS the procedure is slightly different. The easiest way is to simple run:

yum update kernel-smp

or

yum update kernel

Once that is done the kernel will be installed. If you do a quick
cat /etc/grub.conf
you should see the latest version is listed first and the default=0 is set.

If you are using Redhat Enterprise, or RHEL the following part will be of interest to you. RHEL5 follows the same basic method.

 


*WARNING*
If the server does not come up you may have to change the append line to append=root=LABEL=/ but I would suggest trying to do the default way the first time.
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If you have a dual processor server or a P4 CPU that has hyperthreading technology and RHEL3.

cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel-smp
rpm -ihv kernel-smp-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL.i686.rpm

 

lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-47.0.1.ELsmp
shutdown -r now


----------------------------------------------------
If you have a single processor server and RHEL3:

cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel
rpm -ihv kernel-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL.i686.rpm



lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
shutdown -r now


----------------------------------------------------

If you have a dual processor server and RHEL4:

cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel-smp
rpm -ivh 2.6.9-55.0.2.ELsmp.i686.rpm


cat /etc/grub.conf

Just make sure that the new kernel is listed first and default=0 so that it will boot.

shutdown -r now


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----------------------------------------------------
If you have a single processor server and RHEL4:

cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel
rpm -ivh 2.6.9-55.0.2.EL.i686.rpm.


cat /etc/grub.conf

Just make sure that the new kernel is listed first and default=0 so that it will boot.

shutdown -r now


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The lilo -R command will make it reboot only once to the new kernel. If for some reason just put in a reboot TT and it will automatically boot to the old kernel. If it comes back up fine then you can edit the /etc/lilo.conf and set "default=" the new kernel label.

As always be very careful upgrading your kernel as doing it improperly can cause serious harm. Make sure you have a good backup as I take no responsibility if something goes wrong...not that it should.

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update for new kernel 2.4.21-32

On May 19th, 2005 JLChafardet says:

## Single processor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel
rpm -ihv kernel-2.4.21-32.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-32.EL

## HT processor or MultiProcessor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel-smp
rpm -ihv kernel-smp-2.4.21-32.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-32.ELsmp

the rest should be the same.

thanks

On May 21st, 2005 eth00 says:

thanks, I did not even see that when I updated it earlier. Luckily this time you don't have to modify the bootloader :)

lol yet another kernel update.

On May 29th, 2005 JLChafardet says:

## Single processor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --nox --download --force kernel
rpm -ihv kernel-2.4.21-32.0.1.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-32.0.1.E

## HT processor or MultiProcessor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel-smp
rpm -ihv kernel-smp-2.4.21-32.0.1.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R [SEE lilo.conf or the label for this kernel]

the rest should be the same.

I got this message when run

On June 7th, 2005 vnsg says:

I got this message when run command line
up2date --download --force kernel

Message:
"Fetching package list for channel: redhat-linux-i386-9...
########################################

Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: redhat-linux-i386-9...
########################################

The following packages you requested are already updated:
kernel"

Does it mean that i do not need to update kernel version anymore?

yes, at least not for now.

On June 8th, 2005 JLChafardet says:

Yes that means that your kernel is already installed and updated.

At least to my point of view.

regards,

JLChafardet

kernel

On June 9th, 2005 eth00 says:

You are running redhat 9 which is EOL an no longer supported. What that means is that your kernel cannot be upgraded because they stopped updates long ago. Your kernel is vulnerable to a few vulnerabilities and should be upgraded soon, for that matter the entire server is vulnerable to all sorts of nasty problems. I would highly suggest that you look at upgrading the server.

another kernel update (taroon update 6)

On October 1st, 2005 dorpby23 says:

## Single processor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel
rpm -ihv kernel-2.4.21-37.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-37.EL

## HT processor or MultiProcessor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel-smp
rpm -ihv kernel-smp-2.4.21-37.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-37.ELsmp

the rest should be the same.

thanks

On October 3rd, 2005 eth00 says:

Updated :)

Error Message

On November 4th, 2005 naji says:

I ran
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel

i got
Error Message:
Please run rhn_register (or up2date --register on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 or later)
as root on this client
Error Class Code: 9
Error Class Info: Invalid System Credentials.
Explanation:
An error has occurred while processing your request. If this problem
persists please enter a bug report at bugzilla.redhat.com.
If you choose to submit the bug report, please be sure to include
details of what you were trying to do when this error occurred and
details on how to reproduce this problem

up2date

On November 11th, 2005 eth00 says:

Your DC needs to re-register you with rhn to get it to work

rhn

On December 7th, 2005 pedrodj says:

i'm registerd to RHN, if i try to re run rhn_register it say to me i'm registered yet :)

7.3?

On December 25th, 2005 jason says:

How do I upgrade the 7.3 kernel? The one I am running now is 2.4.20-28.7 Is this very outdated? I tried to run up2date but I get the command not found.

Thanks

rh 7.3

On December 25th, 2005 eth00 says:

RH 7.3 has not been updated by up2date in...years.

I would highly suggest upgrading to something newer like centos 3.x or 4.x or better RHEL 3.x or 4.x

kernel upgrade

On January 20th, 2006 3w-hostconcept says:

new version

2.4.21-37.0.1

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2006-0140.html

Upgrade stalling

On January 21st, 2006 jasondubya says:

Hello,

I followed your instructions to upgrade to the latest kernel, but it appears that the upgrade is stalling at:

Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies...

Has anyone else experienced this? It has been at that state for well over an hour.

My system is running RHEL3 on a P4 2.8GHz HT w/ 1GB RAM.

Thanks,
Jason

stalling

On January 21st, 2006 eth00 says:

I have not experienced that so far, I will update it if I see more. Your best friend may be google or the RH mailing lists for now.

umm.... problem

On January 27th, 2006 mac000 says:

plain redhat RHEL3, kernel is in up2date skip-list

>rpm -q kernel
kernel-2.4.21-37.EL
kernel-2.4.21-27.EL

>uname -r
2.4.21-27.EL

>rpm -ihv kernel-2.4.21-37.EL.i686.rpm
package kernel-2.4.21-37.EL is already installed

>lilo -v -v
LILO version 21.4-4, Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger
'lba32' extensions Copyright (C) 1999,2000 John Coffman

Reading boot sector from /dev/hda
Merging with /boot/boot.b
Secondary loader: 11 sectors.
Mapping message file /boot/message
Fatal: open /boot/message: No such file or directory
Removed temporary file /boot/map~

lilo -R 2.4.21-37.EL
Fatal: No image "2.4.21-37.EL" is defined

lilo

On January 27th, 2006 eth00 says:

ls -alh /boot

Do you see a map or messages file in there? It looks like your boot directory is maybe missing files.

lilo label

On February 3rd, 2006 kiwibob says:

seems that the new kernel gets an abreviated label

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-37.0.1.EL
label=2.4.21-37.0.1.E

thus the command has to be

lilo -R 2.4.21-37.0.1.E

thanks

On February 6th, 2006 eth00 says:

Thanks I fixed it.

new kernel released ##

On March 18th, 2006 dorpby23 says:

new kernel released

## Single processor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel
rpm -ihv kernel-2.4.21-40.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-40.EL

## HT processor or MultiProcessor
cd /var/spool/up2date
up2date --download --force kernel-smp
rpm -ihv kernel-smp-2.4.21-40.EL.i686.rpm
lilo -v -v
lilo -R 2.4.21-40.ELsmp

kernel

On March 21st, 2006 eth00 says:

Thanks, I updated it for RHEL4 at the same time

dual processors with rhel4

On April 10th, 2006 dreamwiz says:

Use: up2date --download --force kernel-smp

instead of up2date --download --force kernel

newer version for RHE4

On August 5th, 2006 dreamwiz says:

The newest version for RHE4 is 2.6.9-34.0.2

CentOS 4.3

On August 19th, 2006 Khalid says:

What about CentOS 4.3? How to upgrade its Kernel?

Latest Kernel version

On September 20th, 2006 mahdionline says:

What's the latest kernel for single processor server and RHEL4.

in WHM say : 2.6.9 is no secure and we should update.
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