Hi,
I'm about a medium ability level administrator of a leased RH7.3 server at an ISP. I have a server that's serving about 20 domains for web and email. I'm using the Plesk web server management tool. I ONLY have ssh access over the Internet to my server, but have the ability to remotely powercycle it.

I run up2date manually every day or two, or when I receive a notification from RH, and have so far chosen not to install kernel updates.

At the moment, there appears to be an iptables update that relies on a later version of the kernel to the one I'm using now.

My question is, how reliable is the up2date kernel update system? What is the worst that can happen, and is there anything I can do to prevent against a worse case scenario to ensure that my box is at least bootable afterwards

I currently have kernel 2.4.18-24.7.x and up2date shows 2.4.20 as being the next available one.

Thanks for any advice!

James

You can always go to the RedHat Network website (or any FTP site that has the RedHat RPMs), download the RPM and install it manually.

Or you could get the kernel form kernel.org, and diy

As for bootable, keep your old kernel so if it fails you can go back

So if it fails I can go back?

How do I get back to change it if it fails?

A rephrase of my question is:

Is up2date a reasonably reliable method of updating my kernel? I know I can do it manually, but I'd like to use up2date for simplicity and quickness. What problems have people had? Is it reasonably reliable? With the description of my server situation in my first post, should I even been thinking about up2date?

Up2Date will not upgrade the kernel, it will install the new kernel and leave the old kernel on the system.
If you want to remove the old kernel, you will have to do it manually.

So, your Linux box will have both kernel 2.4.18-24.7.x and kernel 2.4.20-20.9
If the new kernel fails for some reason, you can reboot the system and boot with the old kernel.

And I can choose which kernel I boot from when I only have ssh access?

You will need to edit your bootloader's configuration file (Grub or Lilo) and set the default boot option.

how do u update the kernel, i tried to do an update with rhn just now and all it does is tell me that i need the newest kernel to install the newest iptables.

how do i get the newest kernel via rhn

note: i know how to do this in gnome but i dont have X on this machine, i need to know how to do it via command-line interface.

as root:
# up2date <enter>

It should give you the option to update the kernel when it scans for updates....unless you are already running a later kernel.

Also, it's important to note that these kernel updates do not include the kernel source rpms, so you will have to go find them manually and install them for your new kernel.

it doesnt give me the kernel option because the 1st half of the options get cut off and up2date | less or up2date |more does nothing, i even tried up2date > file.txt but that doesnt work either.

i eve tried up2date -u kernel-2.4.20-20.7 and it says "no suck package" and i know i dont have the latest kernel. i tried just compiling the kernel myself from scratch, everything worked except for my network card.

# up2date -uf kernel

The 'f' is there because by default, the kernel is on your "skipped list" and that forces up2date to overlook that list. You can update any single package the same way (up2date <packagename>). up2date will then install the package and its dependencies ('man up2date').

For changing boot options remotely, if you use grub as your bootloader, check your default boot option in /boot/grub/grub.conf (remember it counts down the stanzas from 0). You can configure which one you would like to start up there via command line before you reboot. For lilo, change /etc/lilo.conf to reflect what you would like changed and re-run lilo.

HTH,
Summer

To add to the above response, up2date is supposed to update your /boot/grub/grub.conf file. Keep in mind the above entry....and it's always a good idea to check before rebooting.

The worst that can happen....
When you boot your system the kernel won't boot...that's why up2date installs kernel's with rpm -ivh...you should have the instance of the older kernel remain on the system so that you can boot to it. Most of the time, this happens because you have a third party module that needs to be recompiled against the kernel. If you don't have one of those installed, I'd say you don't have much to worry about.

yea, the -uf kernel worked. i've used up2date to upgrade kernels before but this is just my 1st time doing it without using Gnome (or any form of X).

Thanks for the help.