Topic: How to update kernel?

[christian]

Hi,
Looking for a pointer on how to upgrade the kernel to a specific release. By default we disable general kernel updates from the CentOS repository.

I have a set of modules (ivtv, ivtv-kmdl) that I want to yum install but they are available for kernel versions on either side of the current one.

Namely we are currently at: 2.6.9-67.0.7
but the module I want (ivtv-kmdl) is dependent on any of:
2.6.9-55,
2.6.9-67
2.6.9-67.0.15,
2.6.9-67.0.20

Since my server recently had a fresh install as of 7.3 the earliest kernel I have in /boot is 2.6.9-67.0.1

I suspect that if it could reference even 2.6.9-55 then it would be ok. But I suspect I'm best off moving forward to the next available kernel release.

How should I update to say .15 or .20? should I temporarily remove the exclude in the yum.conf templates or is there a better/easier way?

Thanks for suggestions.

Christian

[william_syd]

The .20 is in smeupdates-testing.

There is something about updating or installing a kernel but I don't remember what it was.

yum --enablerepo=smeupdates-testing update kernel* kmod*

I'm hopeful it will upgrade the kernel modules as well.

Do it only if your confident.

 

[christian]

yum --enablerepo=smeupdates-testing update kernel* kmod*

Thanks William. Is kmod required? I had assumed I only needed kernel*.

Christian

[william_syd]

Kernel versions and kernel module version should be kept in sync.

However, your system may not be using any kernel modules.

[root@tiger ~]# uname -r
2.6.9-67.0.20.ELsmp
[root@tiger ~]# rpm -qa | grep kmod
kmod-slip-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.4.EL
kmod-ppp-1.0.2-2.2.6.9_67.0.20.EL
kmod-appletalk-smp-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.4.EL
kmod-ppp-1.0.2-2.2.6.9_67.0.4.EL
kmod-slip-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.20.EL
kmod-ppp-smp-1.0.2-2.2.6.9_67.0.20.EL
kmod-appletalk-smp-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.20.EL
warning: only V3 signatures can be verified, skipping V4 signature
kmod-ppp-smp-1.0.2-2.2.6.9_67.0.4.EL
kmod-slip-smp-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.4.EL
kmod-appletalk-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.4.EL
warning: only V3 signatures can be verified, skipping V4 signature
warning: only V3 signatures can be verified, skipping V4 signature
kmod-appletalk-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.20.EL
kmod-slip-smp-1.0-2.2.6.9_67.0.20.EL
[root@tiger ~]#

Hmm... I've never seen two version sets of kmods. Maybe something changed so that that you can revert to a previous kernel if the new one is 'broken'.

[christian]

Thanks for the help. I tested the procedure on my test machine and it seemed to give me no issues. So I then went ahead and did in my main server updating both kernel and kmod to 2.6.9-67.0.20.

Reviewing the change log for the kernel indicates the delta from 0.7 to 0.20 looked quite minor and generally unrelated to my uses so I figured it was low risk (guess we'll see    ).

ivtv is now happy too.

Christian