[CentOS] Uniprocessor kernel booted after YUM update

Tue Sep 20 22:30:19 UTC 2005
Karanbir Singh <mail-lists at karan.org>

hey,

Dr R L Oswald wrote:
> Recently, yum installed an updated kernel 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp;  when we 
> got around to rebooting, we found that some of the machines were running 
> the uniprocessor kernel 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL , showing only a single cpu. 

Easy workaround = just yum erase the UP kernel package, that way the 
system can only come back with a SMP kernel.

> The grub.conf file had been modified in the usual pushdown manner but 
> the default kernel had been set at #2 instead of #0.

Do you have a sample from 'before' the update ? also what version of 
mkinitrd do you have installed on these machines ? Was that updated at 
the same time as the kernel ?  Also, what does /etc/redhat-release say ?
> Here is the grub.conf from an affected server:
> default=2
> timeout=10
> splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

> Changing the default back to 0 has no effect, it still boots the 
> 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL kernel and not the required SMP one. However, if we use 

disable the splashimage, and reboot the machine with default=0, what 
kernel version is highlighted as the default ?

> I tried the obvious ploy of removing the last three kernel entries in 
> grub.conf & setting default=0 but it still manages to boot the 
> 2.4.21-32.0.1.EL UP kernel even though it is no longer in the kernel 
> menu list.

Are you sure the grub.conf you are editing is indeed the one that is 
being used ? ( should be the /boot/grub/grub.conf file ) What does 
'parted <bootdev> print' say ?

> We think we will disable automatic yum kernel updates in future , but 
> meanwhile, has anyone any suggestions or experiences to share on this 
> apart from a complete re-install of each affected node?

I would suggest you provide some more info, and also try to reinstall 
grub. At the very least grub should accomodate changes being made in the 
/boot/grub/grub.conf file.

fwiw, I've tried to reproduce this issue here on a CentOS3/i386 SMP 
machine [1] and am unable to do so. The kernel update installs and sets 
up grub.conf fine.

- K

[1] CentOS 3.4 install and yum update from there.