i686 kernel on an x86_64 hardware

Latest response

Hello all,

thank you for your help always.

My company is converting our physical RHEL servers to a VM. Is possible to have an i686 kernel to run on an x86_64 hardware?

Thank you for your assistance with this.

Arrey

aa
Log in to join the conversation

Responses

ir. Jan Gerrit Kootstra's picture Guru 6222 points
16 July 2014 3:11 AM

Arrey,

Yes, a i686 kernel will work. Both with in a VM or on bare metal. For bare metal or hypervisor the restriction can be the RHEL release or any other OS, not i686/x86_64 kernel of the OS.

So check the hypervisor vendor website if your OS release is supported as guest OS.

Kind regards,

Jan Gerrit Kootstra

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
16 July 2014 3:20 AM

I believe if a person uses the i686 kernel it will then require the PAE kernel for hosts with larger memory footprints (over 4gb).

Just thought it was worth mentioning. It's been a while since I have built a non-x86_64 host ;-)

rhn-support-mflitter's picture Red Hat Guru 1638 points
16 July 2014 7:59 AM

Hi James,

Good point, to follow up; We enabled PAE by default in RHEL 6. However, RHEL 5 still has a separate PAE kernel as you describe.

br
Mark

aa Pro 639 points
16 July 2014 9:41 PM

Thanks guys for all the help.

Close

Welcome! Check out the Getting Started with Red Hat page for quick tours and guides for common tasks.