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OS Kernel Updates

Oracle Yum Plug-in

Manual Updates

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OS Kernel Updates https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/Content/Compute/References/updatin...
OS Kernel Updates
Note

This topic applies only to Linux instances that were launched

before February 15, 2017. Linux instances launched on or after
February 15, 2017 boot directly from the image and do not require
further action for kernel updates.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure boots each instance from a network drive. This configuration requires additional
actions when you update the OS kernel.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware and a Preboot
eXecution Environment (PXE) interface on the host server to load iPXE from a Trivial File Transfer Protocol
(TFTP) server. The iPXE implementation runs a script to boot Oracle Linux. During the boot process, the
system downloads the kernel, the initrd file, and the kernel boot parameters from the network. The
instance does not use the host's GRUB boot loader.

Normally, the yum update kernel-uek command edits the GRUB configuration file, either grub.cfg or
grub.conf, to configure the next boot. Since bare metal instances do not use the GRUB boot loader, changes
to the GRUB configuration file are not implemented. When you update the kernel on your instance, you also
must upload the update to the network to ensure a successful boot process. The following approaches
address this need:

Instances launched from an Oracle-provided image include an Oracle yum plug-in that seamlessly
handles the upload when you run the yum update kernel-uek command.
If you use a custom image based on an Oracle-provided image, the included yum plug-in will continue
to work, barring extraordinary changes.
If you install your own package manager, you must either write your own plug-in or upload the kernel,
initrd, and kernel boot parameters manually.

Oracle Yum Plug-in

On instances launched with an Oracle-provided image, you can find the Oracle yum plug-in at:

/usr/share/yum-plugins/kernel-update-handler.py

The plug-in configuration is at:

/etc/yum/pluginconf.d

The plug-in looks for two variables in the /etc/sysconfig/kernel file, UPDATEDEFAULT and DEFAULTKERNEL. It
picks up the updates only when the first variable is set to "yes" and the DEFAULTKERNEL value matches the
kernel being updated. For example:
# UPDATEDEFAULT specifies if new-kernel-pkg should make
# new kernels the default
UPDATEDEFAULT=yes

# DEFAULTKERNEL specifies the default kernel package type

DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel-uek

Oracle-provided images incorporate the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). If you want to switch to a
non-UEK kernel, you must update the DEFAULTKERNEL value to "kernel" before you run yum update kernel.

Manual Updates
Tip

Oracle recommends using the Oracle yum plug-in to update the

kernel.

If you manually upload the updates, there are four relevant URLs:

http://169.254.0.3/kernel

http://169.254.0.3/initrd

http://169.254.0.3/cmdline

http://169.254.0.3/activate

The first three URLs are for uploading files (HTTP request type PUT). The fourth URL is for activating the
uploaded files (HTTP request type POST). The system discards the uploaded files if they are not activated
before the host restarts.

The kernel and initrd are simple file uploads. The cmdline upload must contain the kernel boot parameters
found in the grub.cfg or grub.conf file, depending on the Linux version. The following example is an entry
from the /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg file in Red Hat Linux 7. The highlighted text represents the
parameters to upload.
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-4.1.12-37.5.1.el6uek.x86_64 ro root=UUID=8079e287-53d7-4b3d-b708-c519cf6829c8 rd_NO_LUKS KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us netroot=iscsi:@169.254.0.2::3260:iface1:eth0::iqn.2015-02.oracle.boot:uefi rd_NO_MD SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 ifname=eth0:90:e2:ba:a2:e3:80 crashkernel=auto iscsi_initiator=iqn.2015-02. rd_NO_LVM ip=eth0:dhcp rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600 iommu=on

The following command returns what is being uploaded to the cmdline file.
cat /tmp/cmdline

A typical response resembles the following.

ro root=UUID=8079e287-53d7-4b3d-b708-c519cf6829c8 rd_NO_LUKS KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us netroot=iscsi:@169.254.0.2::3260:iface1:eth0::iqn.2015-02.oracle.boot:uefi rd_NO_MD SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 ifname=eth0:90:e2:ba:a2:e3:80 crashkernel=auto iscsi_initiator=iqn.2015-02. rd_NO_LVM ip=eth0:dhcp rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600 iommu=on

The following commands update the cmdline and initrd files, and then activate the changes.
CKSUM=`md5sum /tmp/cmdline | cut -d ' ' -f 1`

sudo curl -X PUT --data-binary @/tmp/cmdline -H "Content-MD5: $CKSUM" http://169.254.0.3/cmdline

CKSUM=`md5sum /boot/initramfs-3.8.13-118.8.1.el7uek.x86_64.img | cut -d ' ' -f 1`

sudo curl -X PUT --data-binary @/boot/initramfs-3.8.13-118.8.1.el7uek.x86_64.img -H "Content-MD5: $CKSUM" http://169.254.0.3/initrd

sudo curl -X POST http://169.254.0.3/activate

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