Upgrading to a new Kernel

[Ian Derringer]

I am currently running Kernel 2.4.9-e3smp #1 i686 - I would like to download an rpm and upgrade from there so that I can have a fallback if the upgrade went bad.it sure is possible.

Please let me know what version and where I should look for.

Thank you in advance.

Ian

[K.C. Chan]

go to rpmfind.net and do a search for your kernel build. Install the kernel rpm, it should leave a back up copy. When you boot, the old kernel should be listed as one of the kernel to boot from, but the new kernel is the default choice.

[Gopi Sekar · Accepted solution]

From the version format described by you, it looks to be RedHat system. You can download the errata kernel packages from RedHat website if you subscription (or evaluation login).

After downloading the kernel, install it using rpm -ivh . Generally this is done using rpm -Uvh where existing kernel will be removed and the new kerenl will be installed (upgrade). incase of -ivh you are installing one more kernel package which will not erase the old one. Then you can choose the kernel to boot from during next boot (both kernel will be listed).

But i believe this process might have problem when you want erase one of the kernel because both package will share the same name and rpm will get confused on which one to erase.

Hope this helps,
Gopi

[Roderik Hamers]

Ian,

When you got Red Hat Linux,the kernel can also be updated by up2date. It will install the newest kernel next to the old kernel and both kernels will be displayed at the grub boot loader, in case something gets wrong.

Ro.

[Tvs]

rpm -ivh kerenel-pacakage

it will save the current kernel . and while booting yu will get two menu. if the new kernel not working boot from the old kernel adn remove the entry in grub.conf or in lilo.conf

[Ian Derringer]

Hi,
Besides using "up2date", where can I go to download the latest Kernel? I am histate to do the "up2date" because you have to open the firewall to do this, well according to our site. I really need a good site to download the newest version of kernel.

Many thanks!!

Ian D.

[Gopi Sekar]

You should be able to download it directly from redhat.com website. I believe you can also use rpmfind.net to retrieve latest kernel.

Hope this helps,
Gopi

[Roderik Hamers]

You can obtain the newest kernel also from www.kernel.org, these you will need to compile yourself, or you can go to rpmfind.net where the rpm version will be.

[Robert Walker_8]

Hi Ian,

We had the same issue originally with our firewall and website. However if you modify /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date

Modify the following this way you wont use SSL and your downloads will just be via HTTP.

serverURL=http://xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com/XMLRPC
enableProxy=1
enableProxyAuth=1
proxyPassword=abc
proxyUser=redhatnetwork

Get an account created (We have Windoze as our proxy server) and set the proxyUser/proxyPassword to that account, then Up2date should access the Redhat Network and download the required files (assuming you have subscription) - otherwise its a hardslog via the single package download option under Redhat Network.

Robert.