Hi together,
As some of you may have seen, I've just put the kernel RPMs for the Intel
i386 distributions 6.3, 6.4, 7.0 and 7.1 in place. You can find them at
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/kernel/RPMs/
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/kernel/RPMs/
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.0/kernel/RPMs/
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/kernel/RPMs/
for download.
The announcement is waiting to be published, but you get the preliminary
version. A kernel update is not rocket science, but it is more sensitive
than exchanging a package that you have never heard of for a stupid
tempfile race. You should carefully follow each step before you reboot
your machine for the freshly installed kernel to become active.
We decided to update the kernel packages on all supported distributions to
the most recent version 2.2.19 instead of fixing the known security bugs
with patches. Tons of other problems have been fixed with the release of
the 2.2.19 kernel, and we believe that this is the most stable kernel in
the 2.2 release row.
To find out which package to download use the command
rpm -qf `awk '/^image =/ { print $3 }' < /etc/lilo.conf`
Additional stuff can be found in the respective misc/ directory under
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/<distvers>/kernel/misc, such as
the .config used for kernel configuration, the output of the compile run
and the specfile for the RPM packages.
To install the kernel, proceed as follows:
1. Download the kernel rpm for your installation.
2. Install the kernel using the command
rpm -Uhv k_deflt.rpm
or whatever the command necessary for your installation (see above).
It may be necessary to either deinstall the old kernel package and
modules package or to use the "--force --nodeps" commandline options
for rpm in addition to -Uhv.
3. If you use an Adaptec aic7xxx scsi host adapter, please change
"aic7xxx" in INITRD_MODULES on top of /etc/rc.config to read
"aic7xxx_old".
4. Execute
mk_initrd
An error indicates that the initrd is not written to disk. It is
possible that your machine will not boot if you have a scsi system.
5. Execute
lilo
If you did not change the line starting with "initrd" in
/etc/lilo.conf, then the freshly created init-Ramdisk will be loaded
together with the kernel by lilo upon system boot. This initrd contains
the drivers that are necessary for the kernel to mount the root
filesystem of the system. On scsi systems, you can't boot without the
modules contained in the initrd.
6. If you use lvm, update the lvm package as well. It is contained in the
same directory as the kernel rpms.
7. To avoid complaints from the kernel about an old mount, update the
util-linux (util for 7.0 and older), too, using rpm -Uhv <packname>.
8. The 7.0 distribution contained a bug in the glibc that is triggered by
2.2.19. The bug may result in mounted nfs filesystems to report -EIO
when listing directories in some rare cases. Get the update package
for shlibs (the other sub-packages are not needed) from
i386/update/7.0/a1/shlibs.rpm, and install it, again, using "rpm -Uhv
<packname>". Keep your machine in a quiet state during this upgrade; if
at all possible, bring the machine into single user mode, using the
command "init 1"
Execute "ldconfig" after completion of the rpm command.
9. Execute
init 6
or
shutdown -r now # which is the same without warning
...and if it fails, drop me a mail, please.
Thanks,
Roman.
--
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| Roman Drahtmüller