RHEL 3 kernel upgrade from 2.4.21-50.EL to 2.4.21-51.ELEdit
These notes made while performing a RHEL 3 kernel upgrade from version 2.4.21-50.EL to 2.4.21-51.EL.
In the command snippets below $ is a normal prompt and # is a superuser prompt.
Preliminaries
Do everything inside a screen session in case we lose the connection:
$ screen
As basically every operation requires root privileges, do this in a root shell rather than using sudo for every command:
$ sudo -s
For posterity:
# uptime
06:16:20 up 100 days, 23:03, 2 users, load average: 0.08, 0.18, 0.09
Get a list of updates:
# 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 51.ELPkg name/pattern
kernel-doc 2.4.21 51.ELPkg name/pattern
kernel-source 2.4.21 51.ELPkg name/pattern
For comparison with after the upgrade:
# uname -a
Linux s69819.example.com 2.4.21-50.EL #1 Tue May 8 17:18:10 EDT 2007 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update 9)
# rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-2.4.21-50.EL
kernel-utils-2.4-8.37.15
kernel-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
kernel-source-2.4.21-50.EL
kernel-doc-2.4.21-50.EL
kernel-2.4.21-47.EL
The actual upgrade
Perform the actual upgrade:
# 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 51.EL athlon
kernel-doc 2.4.21 51.EL i386
kernel-source 2.4.21 51.EL i386
Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies...
########################################
kernel-2.4.21-51.EL.athlon. ########################## Done.
kernel-doc-2.4.21-51.EL.i38 ########################## Done.
kernel-source-2.4.21-51.EL. ############################## Done.
Preparing ########################################### [100%]
Installing...
1:kernel-source ########################################### [100%]
2:kernel ########################################### [100%]
3:kernel-doc ########################################### [100%]
Check that the kernel files where actually installed into /boot/:
# ls -laF /boot
total 19749
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1024 Sep 21 06:22 ./
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 Jul 11 13:17 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48843 Oct 13 2006 config-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48843 Jul 5 2006 config-2.4.21-47.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48843 May 8 16:24 config-2.4.21-50.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48843 Jul 25 02:34 config-2.4.21-51.EL
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Sep 21 06:22 grub/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260548 Oct 21 2006 initrd-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 259145 Jul 20 2006 initrd-2.4.21-47.EL.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260630 Jun 12 07:06 initrd-2.4.21-50.EL.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260631 Sep 21 06:22 initrd-2.4.21-51.EL.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 549 Aug 5 2005 kernel.h
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 Aug 5 2005 lost+found/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23108 Sep 11 2003 message
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21282 Sep 11 2003 message.ja
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Mar 24 2006 .rackspace/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 Jun 12 07:11 System.map -> System.map-2.4.21-50.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 578134 Oct 13 2006 System.map-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 578134 Jul 5 2006 System.map-2.4.21-47.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 578301 May 8 16:24 System.map-2.4.21-50.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 578301 Jul 25 02:34 System.map-2.4.21-51.EL
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2882324 Oct 13 2006 vmlinux-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2882320 Jul 5 2006 vmlinux-2.4.21-47.EL*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2886416 May 8 16:25 vmlinux-2.4.21-50.EL*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2886416 Jul 25 02:35 vmlinux-2.4.21-51.EL*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1240980 Oct 13 2006 vmlinuz-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1240892 Jul 5 2006 vmlinuz-2.4.21-47.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1240116 May 8 16:24 vmlinuz-2.4.21-50.EL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1240120 Jul 25 02:34 vmlinuz-2.4.21-51.EL
Check that the new kernel is in position 0 (at the top) of the list in /boot/grub/grub.conf:
# cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
# initrd /initrd-version.img
[/tags/boot #boot]=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.21-51.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-51.EL ro root=/dev/hda3
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-51.EL.img
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.21-50.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-50.EL ro root=/dev/hda3
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-50.EL.img
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.21-47.0.1.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL ro root=/dev/hda3
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-47.0.1.EL.img
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.21-47.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-47.EL ro root=/dev/hda3
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-47.EL.img
Cross your fingers, hold your breath, and reboot the server which is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean:
# sudo reboot
Broadcast message from root (pts/1) (Fri Sep 21 06:26:25 2007):
The system is going down for reboot NOW!
Broadcast message from root (pts/1) (Fri Sep 21 06:26:25 2007):
The system is going down for reboot NOW!
Post-install checks
63 seconds later, after logging in again:
$ uname -a
Linux s69819.example.com 2.4.21-51.EL #1 Wed Jul 25 03:27:07 EDT 2007 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update 9)
Check that all services are still running:
$ sudo service --status-all
$ sudo chkconfig --list
And check that up2date is satisfied:
$ sudo 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
----------------------------------------------------------
Optional clean-up; you could install the previous version of the kernel but I like to keep it around.