RHN / Kernel Updates

[bkusnir]

Is it safe to apply any of the relevant packages that are listed on the web portion of RHN? The kernel package especially interests and concerns me. I am currently have kernel-2.4.20-19.7 installed, and I notice there is an update to kernel-2.4.21-19.7 available. Is this a pre-compiled, binary / stock kernel like we receive on our initial ServerBeach RH Linux v7.3 server? Is it safe to update this package, will I have any suprises when I reboot? Should I just update the kernel source and then manually recompile the kernel? Am I best off leaving the damn thing alone? What about other packages that are available, I have been advised to steer clear of kernel, php, and sendmail packages. What do you guys think? I want to keep my system up to date, and secure.

[Tino Didriksen]

I've updated the kernel twice now, and no problems so far. So yeah, it's safe.

[bkusnir]

Via the web interface on RHN, correct? Did it ask you to reboot, or did you do that manually? From the cmd line, WHM, or SB rapid reboot? Are there any other dependenices, or did you experience and difficulties with other services (apache, named, etc...)

--Thanks!

[Tino Didriksen]

From SSH, actually...better, since you can monitor it.

These commands, as root, will fully update your system:
/usr/sbin/up2date --nox -p
/usr/sbin/up2date --nox -u
/usr/sbin/up2date --nox -f kernel kernel-source
(do /usr/sbin/up2date --help if you want to know other interesting options)

Then I used Webmin's reboot button, but you can do /sbin/reboot instead.

You should not use RapidReboot unless the machine is down. It does a hard reset, as opposed to the soft /sbin/reboot one.

[bkusnir]

now, will running up2date like you said conflict with the updates cpanel does? (i.e. the cron.daily entry for /scripts/upcp)? Or will it just skip over them? Should I only use one or the other? I do not want to effectively revert back to an older version of software by using two competing updating methods. RH seems to maintain different stable version releases than the individual packages themselves do. What is the best thing to do? What about the kernel updates under up2date? I see they have been excluded from the package list, aren't these safe to install since they are pre-compiled, binary versions of the stock kernel? I am a little leary about doing it ... but most of the people I have talked to say they have had no problem with it. Since everything is installed as modules, should be an easy upgrade.

[elderban]

Kernal updates are often ignored by up2date because once installed, they require a server reboot. This is something that larger sites may only want to do late at night when they have the least amount of users.

I've done many kernel updates via up2date and have never had a problem.

I'm not familair with how CPanel does things, so I can't answer that question for you. However, cron.daily is a cron job and is executed at certain times of the day (usually one minute after midnight).