hey,
Dr R L Oswald wrote:
> Recently, yum installed an updated kernel 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp; when we
> got around to rebooting, we found that some of the machines were running
> the uniprocessor kernel 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL , showing only a single cpu.
Easy workaround = just yum erase the UP kernel package, that way the
system can only come back with a SMP kernel.
> The grub.conf file had been modified in the usual pushdown manner but
> the default kernel had been set at #2 instead of #0.
Do you have a sample from 'before' the update ? also what version of
mkinitrd do you have installed on these machines ? Was that updated at
the same time as the kernel ? Also, what does /etc/redhat-release say ?
> Here is the grub.conf from an affected server:
> default=2
> timeout=10
> splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
> Changing the default back to 0 has no effect, it still boots the
> 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL kernel and not the required SMP one. However, if we use
disable the splashimage, and reboot the machine with default=0, what
kernel version is highlighted as the default ?
> I tried the obvious ploy of removing the last three kernel entries in
> grub.conf & setting default=0 but it still manages to boot the
> 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL UP kernel even though it is no longer in the kernel
> menu list.
Are you sure the grub.conf you are editing is indeed the one that is
being used ? ( should be the /boot/grub/grub.conf file ) What does
'parted <bootdev> print' say ?
> We think we will disable automatic yum kernel updates in future , but
> meanwhile, has anyone any suggestions or experiences to share on this
> apart from a complete re-install of each affected node?
I would suggest you provide some more info, and also try to reinstall
grub. At the very least grub should accomodate changes being made in the
/boot/grub/grub.conf file.
fwiw, I've tried to reproduce this issue here on a CentOS3/i386 SMP
machine [1] and am unable to do so. The kernel update installs and sets
up grub.conf fine.
- K
[1] CentOS 3.4 install and yum update from there.
