Chapter 37. Manually Upgrading the
Kernel
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel is custom built by the Red
Hat kernel team to ensure its integrity and compatibility with
supported hardware. Before Red Hat releases a kernel, it must first
pass a rigorous set of quality assurance tests.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernels are packaged in RPM format so
that they are easy to upgrade and verify using the Red Hat Update Agent, or the up2date command. The Red Hat
Update Agent automatically queries the Red Hat Network servers
and determines which packages need to be updated on your machine,
including the kernel. This chapter is only
useful for those individuals that require manual updating of kernel
packages, without using the up2date
command.
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Warning |
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Please note, that building a custom kernel is not supported by
the Red Hat Global Services Support team, and therefore is not
explored in this manual.
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Tip |
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Use of up2date is highly recommended by Red Hat for installing
upgraded kernels.
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For more information on Red Hat Network, the Red Hat Update Agent, and up2date, refer to Chapter 17 Red Hat Network.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux contains the following kernel packages
(some may not apply to your architecture):
-
kernel — Contains the kernel and
the following key features:
-
Uniprocessor support for x86 and Athlon systems (can be run on a
multi-processor system, but only one processor is utilized)
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Multi-processor support for all other architectures
-
For x86 systems, only the first 4 GB of RAM is used; use the
kernel-hugemem package for x86 systems
with over 4 GB of RAM
-
kernel-devel — Contains the
kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules against
the kernel package.
-
kernel-hugemem — (only for i686
systems) In addition to the options enabled for the kernel package, the key configuration options are
as follows:
-
Support for more than 4 GB of RAM (up to 64 GB for x86)
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Note |
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kernel-hugemem is required for memory
configurations higher than 16 GB.
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-
PAE (Physical Address Extension) or 3 level paging on x86
processors that support PAE
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Support for multiple processors
-
4GB/4GB split — 4GB of virtual address space for the
kernel and almost 4GB for each user process on x86 systems
-
kernel-hugemem-devel — Contains
the kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules
against the kernel-hugemem package.
-
kernel-smp — Contains the kernel
for multi-processor systems. The following are the key
features:
-
kernel-smp-devel — Contains the
kernel headers and makefiles sufficient to build modules against
the kernel-smp package.
-
kernel-utils — Contains
utilities that can be used to control the kernel or system
hardware.
-
kernel-doc — Contains
documentation files from the kernel source. Various portions of the
Linux kernel and the device drivers shipped with it are documented
in these files. Installation of this package provides a reference
to the options that can be passed to Linux kernel modules at load
time.
By default, these files are placed in the /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-<version>/ directory.
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Note |
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The kernel-source package has been
removed and replaced with an RPM that can only be retrieved from
Red Hat Network. This *.src.rpm must then
be rebuilt locally using the rpmbuild
command. Refer to the latest distribution Release Notes, including
all updates, at https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ for more
information on obtaining and installing the kernel source
package.
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