Improved Kernel Package Retention in 12.1

Michal Marek — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:38:14 +0000

A long awaited feature of the openSUSE update stack is finally here!
Since some time, it has been possible to tell libzypp to not delete old
kernels on update:

multiversion = provides:multiversion(kernel)

in /etc/zypp/zypp.conf. That way, you don’t have to worry that a
brand new -rc kernel from Factory makes your system unbootable. This however
solves one problem and brings another one – you have to manually delete the
old kernel so that your /boot partition does not fill up. openSUSE 12.1 will
provide a solution to this, you will be able to tell what kernels you want to
keep after an update, other kernels will be deleted. The configuration is the
same file, /etc/zypp/zypp.conf:

## Comma separated list of kernel packages to keep installed in parallel, if the
## above multiversion variable is set. Packages can be specified as
## 2.6.32.12-0.7 - Exact version to keep
## latest        - Keep kernel with the highest version number
## latest-N      - Keep kernel with the Nth highest version number
## running       - Keep the running kernel
## oldest        - Keep kernel with the lowest version number (the GA kernel)
## oldest+N      - Keep kernel with the Nth lowest version number
##
## Default: Do not delete any kernels if multiversion = provides:multiversion(kernel) is set
multiversion.kernels = latest,running

If you configure this and the above multiversion variable, then after each
kernel update, during a subsequent reboot, a script will compare the list of
installed kernels with the multiversion.kernels setting and delete those that
are no longer needed. Examples:

Keep the latest kernel and the running one if it differs. This is similar to
no enabling the multiversion feature at all, except that the old kernel is
removed after reboot and not immediatelly after installation. BTW, you
probably always want to include “running”:
```
multiversion.kernels = latest,running
```

Keep last two kernels and the running one:

multiversion.kernels = latest,latest-1,running

Keep the latest kernel, the running and a my test kernel with a fancy
patch:
```
multiversion.kernels = latest,running,3.0.rc7-test
```

If you want to try it, it’s all in Factory already. Check if these packages are
recent enough and uncomment the two variables in zypp.conf:

$ rpm -q --changelog kernel-desktop mkinitrd libzypp | grep -B2 312018
* Fri Jun 17 2011 mmarek@suse.cz
- rpm/post.sh: Touch /boot/do_purge_kernels on package install
    (fate#312018).
--
- Add purge-kernels script to automatically delete old kernel packages
  on boot, based on configuration in /etc/zypp/zypp.conf, variable
  multiversion_kernels (fate#312018).
--
* Tue Jun 21 2011 dmacvicar@suse.de
- Add configuration template for automatic kernel
  purge (feature#312018) to zypp.conf
$ grep ^multiversion /etc/zypp/zypp.conf
multiversion = provides:multiversion(kernel)
multiversion.kernels = latest,running

Happy updating!

What to do if every kernel update break your bootloader settings

Josef Reidinger — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:57:00 +0000

Perl-Bootloader response for kernel post-install bootloader update script. Current target is ensure, that you have in your bootloader actually kernel and also that entries for old kernel is removed. This is problematic for some complex or manually enhanced configuration. In this case perl-Bootloader should somehow break your settings (this mean you still can boot, but your enhancement or extra sections can dismiss). This should change in future as noticed in bugzilla .

If you want maintain your configuration manually, you can simple set your bootloader to none. There is two ways how you can do it. First is set LOADER_TYPE=”none” in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader. Second is set this in yast2 bootloader. Another advantage is that this take almost no-time, so if obtain hardware configuration for update take to much time, this is workaround.

Warning, if you set bootloader type to none you must manually edit your bootloader configuration after kernel update. What can help you, is set image and initrd to symlinks which lead to actual kernel.

kernel update – openSUSE Lizards

Improved Kernel Package Retention in 12.1

What to do if every kernel update break your bootloader settings