Re: RH kernel upgrade

[Jamie McCarthy <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

bruce@armintl.com (Bruce Smith) writes:

> Redhat Kernel updates on a SCSI machine can be very tricky 
> (as you found out).

Yeah!

> Did you rebuild your initial ramdisk image ("mkinitrd" command)?

Ahhh.  That must be it.  You know, it spells that step out just fine on
the webpage but I skipped it because it was something I never had to do
before (and the webpage seemed to be 5.2-specific so I wasn't sure if
it applied).

I've recompiled kernels from source before, but never installed one
with an RPM.  I'm not sure why there'd be a difference but obviously
there is!

So, if I read this webpage correctly, basically the problem is that my
initial ramdisk still contains the modules compiled for my old kernel.
The new modules are probably installed just fine in /lib/modules but
because I haven't run mkinitrd, they haven't been copied to this
special place on disk that LILO can read during the boot process.

http://www.redhat.com/corp/support/docs/kernel-upgrade/kernel-upgrade-3.html#ss3.4

> Did you edit /etc/lilo.conf to reflect ALL of the changes?
> (this sounds like your problem)  You need to change multiple
> lines to reflect the new version.

I only edited the "image=/boot/vmlinuz..." line -- because I didn't
rebuild the ram disk and so there was no new .img file to point the
"initrd=" line to.

> Did you rerun LILO?

Yes, at least I remembered to do _that_...

> It is possible to fix your system.  
> 
> Did you have a boot diskette to boot your system?
> 
> If it will not boot at all, you can compile a custom kernel on a 
> different Linux box with builtin SCSI support to boot your system.
> 
> If you want to bring the PC to this week's beginner's meeting,
> I can fix it for you.

Thanks for offering!  I got all the machines running again though.

On two of them, I had installed the SMP version of 2.2.5-22, which does
not replace the non-SMP version, and I left the old non-SMP as an
option in lilo.conf so that was cool.

On the third machine, the non-SMP 2.2.5-22 stomped over 2.2.5-15. I had
to boot from the rescue disk, remount the hard drive, chroot into it,
and "rpm -U --oldpackage" 2.2.5-15.  Fortunately I had the RPM on the
hard drive itself, because the rescue disk doesn't have a driver to
talk to the Red Hat CD-ROM!

Please don't ask why I was stupid enough to make the same mistake three
times in a row :-)
--
        Jamie McCarthy
        jamie@mccarthy.org
 http://jamie.mccarthy.org/