Preparing To Upgrade - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

Chapter 40. Manually Upgrading the Kernel
does not suffer from any of these limitations, and is the suggested Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5 architecture to use with large-memory systems.
• kernel-PAE-devel — Contains the kernel headers and makefiles required to build modules
against the kernel-PAE package.
• 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.
• kernel-headers — Includes the C header files that specify the interface between the Linux kernel
and userspace libraries and programs. The header files define structures and constants that are
needed for building most standard programs.
• kernel-xen — Includes a version of the Linux kernel which is needed to run Virtualization.
• kernel-xen-devel — Contains the kernel headers and makefiles required to build modules
against the kernel-xen package
Note
The kernel-source package has been removed and replaced with an RPM that can
only be retrieved from Red Hat Network. This *.src.rpm package must then be rebuilt
locally using the rpmbuild command. For more information on obtaining and installing
the kernel source package, refer to the latest updated Release Notes (including all
updates) at

40.2. Preparing to Upgrade

Before upgrading the kernel, it is recommended that you take some precautionary steps. The first
step is to make sure working boot media exists for the system in case a problem occurs. If the boot
loader is not configured properly to boot the new kernel, the system cannot be booted into Red Hat
Enterprise Linux without working boot media.
To create a boot diskette, login as root, and run the command /sbin/mkbootdisk `uname -r` at
a shell prompt.
Tip
Refer to the mkbootdisk man page for more options. You can create bootable media via
CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and USB flash drives, provided that your system BIOS also supports it.
Reboot the machine with the boot media and verify that it works before continuing.
To determine which kernel packages are installed, execute the command rpm -qa | grep kernel
at a shell prompt:
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http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/