Re: RH kernel upgrade

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Did you rebuild your initial ramdisk image ("mkinitrd" command)?
> 
> Ahhh.  That must be it. 

That'll do 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!

The only difference is because Redhat compiles their kernels with
SCSI support as modules.  If you compile your own kernel with
your SCSI support in the kernel, you don't need an initrd, nor
will you have this problem.

The BIOS loads the kernel, and it boots the system.  It needs SCSI
support to mount the root filesystem, and the module is on the
filesystem (catch-22).  It will kernel panic at that point without
the SCSI module.

That's were the initial ram disk comes in.  It loads the SCSI
module into memory at boot time so it's available for the kernel.

> 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.

Right, the new kernel was looking at the module for the old
version kernel (in the initial ram disk), and wouldn't use it.

> > 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.

That'll do it!   :{)

> > 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.

Great!

> 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.

Good idea!  I always leave an old kernel on the system when I
upgrade, just in case . . .    :{)

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
--------------------------------------------