Hello, I am pretty new to linux and I tried updating Fedora4 earlier. After each update downloads, I get a pop-up telling me that the update is not signed with a GPG signature and asks if it should continue. There's got to be a better way than to have to sit at a box clicking the yes button 450 times. What am I doing wrong?

Should I be using a different server where the updates would come signed with GPG signatures??

Should I have not even required the use of GPG signatures??

Does it matter if they are signed??

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I offer my thanks in advance.


Also, I am doing this on a machine that is multibooted, and the grubloader is not controlled by Fedora. I'm assuming that before logging into Fedora again after updating the kernel, that I need to first log into RHEL4 and modify the grub.conf to reflect the new kernel and initrd entries? I dont want to cause any lockups!

Well, I just accepted all the updates...did I make a mistake by doing that?

I'm sure the exact same issue will come up when updating RHEL4 so everyone is still welcome to weigh in on the subject.

You should have imported the gpg key.

Thanks reddazz, is that what I'm supposed to type from a terminal? I had thought that I imported the gpg key through the gui interface...and that it was the updates themselves that weren't signed...but I could easily be wrong. Where would I look to first check if the key is already there/being used before running the command?

Yes thats what you are supposed to enter in the CLI. The # only means you should be root so don't enter that. Any official packages from the Fedora development team are always signed with the Fedora GPG key so if you get errors regarding the gpg key, then you have to import it. The same applies for any third party repositories that you add to your system. If you add a yum repo, then you have to go the website of the packager, get their GPG key and then import it. This article has more info regarding gpg keys on Fedora and other related distros. As for checking whether a gpg key key already exists, I am not sure about the exact procedure. It maybe worth taking a look at the rpm or yum manual ("man rpm" or "man yum" at the CLI).

Thank you very much, that article should help a lot. Hopefully next time I wont have to click all those yes boxes. I didn't run into the problem at all with RHEL4...I thought I did everything the same except I had to register with my RHA subscription before getting the updates. And as for the grub.conf file, it was appended to automatically with both the smp and non-smp kernel updates for both distros after the updates...so should I just keep them all on the boot menu for a few days and then delete the entries for the older kernels if there is no problem with the new ones?

RHEL4 is different to Fedora because RHN works slightly differently to YUM. As for your kernel grub entries, when you uninstall the kernels that you don't need, their grub entries will be automatically removed.

What is the proper way to uninstall a kernel...I assume deleting the entries from the "/boot" folder would be the wrong way. I have my rig set up where there is a fat32 share area, a shared /boot (120 meg), a large shared /home (I use unique login names between distros so it hasn't ever been a problem), and a shared ext3 swap area...with each distro having its own root partition and each windows variant also having its own partition.

You can check which kernels are installed by doing
A list of installed kernels will be shown on your screen. To uninstall a kernel you don't need, do

Wow, I actually understand those commands and switches....I guess the RHA classes are doing some good. I just wanted to double check one thing though, for "kernel-version" in the uninstall command that you gave me, do I write the kernel name exactly as it is written in the "/boot" directory, such as: "vmlinuz-2.6.9-22.ELsmp".

No, don't use the versions in /boot. Use the output from your screen after running the commands above. On my Suse box, if I run
I get the following output
So to remove the first kernel, I would do

Ahh, I'm glad I double-checked with you and I thank you for the help. I will give it a few days on the new kernels and if everything is good I will use the removal commands that you illustrated. So far the only problem that I have with RHEL or fedora is a keyboard issue with RHEL...but it existed before the kernel switch so it is not from the updated kernel. Thanks again man.

It is possible to remove a kernel from your boot options but keep it installed simply by commenting out its entry in /boot/grub/grub.conf.

If you installed a kernel via yum, I advise removing it via yum also, i.e. use 'yum erase kernel-version' not 'rpm -e kernel-version'.

The kernels that I installed for both Fedora and RHEL were retrieved simply by running the integrated "Up2date" interface. Thats all I really know to mess with right now but that will change as I progress through the classes.

YUM is just a wrapper for rpm with a few extras, so removing a kernel using rpm or yum results in the same thing. Anyway I am sure RHEL4 does not use YUM as default.