Upgrading Kernel
 

Hi,

The kernel version I have on my RHEL AS4 is 2.6.9-5.ELsmp.
I want to upgrade it. There is no internet on the servers.
So how should I go about this? Are there any risk factors involved?
What are they? How can I overcome?

Thanks,
Aj

Is there a reason you need to upgrade the kernel?

You could download the packages from Red Hat's servers onto another computer and transfer them to the server and install them as any other RPM...
"rpm -ivh kernel-numbers.rpm"

You might have to go back and forth a few times downloading dependencies. And, you'll prob'ly need an active subscription to download anything but source packages.

Or, you could download the kernel source and build your own. This is way more work, and has the chance that it won't work. You can always reboot and go back to the old kernel if it doesn't. There should be a file with all the configs Red Hat used to build the kernel you already have running, so you can start with that. I think the config files get stuck into /boot .

There's no reason as suchs, but since we built the servers we haven't applied any kind of patches or (security) updates like the windows servers. So just thought if we could upgrade the kernel.

Also are there any risks involved to our servers since we did not apply any of the security or any kind of updates as of now.
Shall I install the updates? And Yes we do have Red Hat subscription.

Since your servers are not on the Internet there is almost no chance of you being attacked by malware. The only other reason to apply updates is to get rid of bugs. If you are not experiencing any bugs then I agree with your decision to not bother applying updates as that is probably a waste of time.

The kernel upgrade is just another update. If you have no security problems or no bugs, why bother?

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Steve Stites

Cool..Thanks.
This answers my question. Thank you for your support.