cpio: write error during update/installation of kernel or kernel-smp package

Issue

• error when trying to install the latest patches, like the following:

# up2date -uf

Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-as-4...  

[...]

error: unpacking of archive failed on file /boot/System.map-2.6.9-89.0.23.ELsmp: cpio: write

There was a fatal RPM install error. The message was:
There was a rpm unpack error installing the package: kernel-smp-2.6.9-89.0.23.EL