Upgraded kernels on Cloud Access images (AMIs) at Amazon EC2 may not be selectable by default.

Updated -

Issue

  • Upgraded kernels on Cloud Access images (AMIs) at Amazon EC2 may not be selectable by default.

Environment

  • Amazon On Demand

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0

Resolution

  • If a customer has not already performed a yum update kernel on the image, then the following steps need to occur:
  1. Add a default /etc/sysconfig/kernel file to the instance.
    # UPDATEDEFAULT specifies if new-kernel-pkg should make
# new kernels the default
UPDATEDEFAULT=yes
# DEFAULTKERNEL specifies the default kernel package type
DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel
  2. Add a symlink from /boot/grub/grub.conf to /etc/grub.conf.
    ln -s /boot/grub/grub.conf /etc/grub.conf
  3. If the image is i386, then run blkid /dev/xvda.

  • The yum update kernel can now be run and the /boot/grub/grub.conf file should be populated for the kernel selection. 

  • It should also be noted that RHEL 5 images may not have the new kernel as the default (https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-58124).

  • If a customer has already performed a yum update kernel, then the previous steps need to be performed in addition to manually adding an entry for the new kernel to /boot/grub/grub.conf.  See https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-1322 for details on manually adding an entry to grub.conf.

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