Updating the Ksplice Uptrack Client to a Specific Effective Kernel Version

You might want to limit the set of updates that uptrack-upgrade installs. For example, the security policy at a site might require a senior administrator to approve Ksplice updates before you can install these updates on production systems. In such cases, you can direct uptrack-upgrade to upgrade to a specific effective kernel version instead of the latest available version.

Note:

You can only select a specific effective version when using the offline Ksplice client and offline update RPM packages. This ability keeps production systems at a tested update level temporarily, while the latest updates are tested in an integration or UAT environment.

Install the uptrack-updates package for the current kernel.
```
sudo dnf -y install uptrack-updates-$(uname -r)
```
Important:

If you have booted the most recent available kernel and no Ksplice updates are available, this command might fail or might return an error message notifying you that the kernel version isn't yet supported by Ksplice Uptrack. This command only succeeds when Ksplice updates are available for the kernel that the system is running.
Use the uptrack-uname -r command to display the current effective kernel version.
```
sudo uptrack-uname -r
```

List all effective kernel versions.

To list all the effective kernel versions that are available, specify the --list-effective option to the uptrack-upgrade command, for example:

sudo uptrack-upgrade --list-effective

Output similar to the following is displayed:

Available effective kernel versions:

5.15.0-205.149.5.4.el9uek.x86_64/#2 SMP Wed May 8 15:31:38 PDT 2024
5.15.0-206.153.7.1.el9uek.x86_64/#2 SMP Wed May 22 20:24:12 PDT 2024
5.15.0-207.156.6.el9uek.x86_64/#2 SMP Thu Jun 6 02:32:40 PDT 2024

Remove installed updates.
Remove the installed updates to revert the effective kernel version to the earliest that's available, which is 205.149.5.4 in the following example:
```
sudo uptrack-remove --all
sudo uptrack-uname -r
```
The current effective kernel version is displayed:
```
5.15.0-205.149.5.4.el9uek.x86_64
```
Set the effective kernel version.
You can set the effective kernel version that you want the system to use by using either of the following methods:
- Specify the --effective option to the uptrack-upgrade command.
  
  For example, to update from 205.149.5 to 206.153.7.1 instead of updating to the latest 207.156.6, use the --effective option to specify 206.153.7.1:
```
sudo uptrack-upgrade --effective="5.15.0-206.153.7.1.el9uek.x86_64/#2 SMP Wed May 22 20:24:12 PDT 2024"
```
  The effective kernel version is displayed after the upgrade:
```
...
Effective kernel version is 5.15.0-206.153.7.1.el9uek
```
  You can check that the effective kernel version matches:
```
sudo uptrack-uname -r
```
  Output similar to the following is displayed:
```
5.15.0-206.153.7.1.el9uek.x86_64
```
  This method is suitable for setting the effective kernel version on individual systems.
- Use the effective_version option in the /etc/uptrack/uptrack.conf file to set an effective package version for the uptrack-upgrade command. This method works the same as specifying --effective on the command line.
  
  Because uptrack-upgrade runs automatically whenever you update the uptrack-updates package on a system, the following entry would limit the effective kernel version to 206.153.7.1:
```
effective_version = 5.15.0-206.153.7.1.el9uek.x86_64/#2 SMP Wed May 22 20:24:12 PDT 2024
```
  This method is convenient for setting the effective version for a package on several production systems, where the content of the /etc/uptrack/uptrack.conf file can be obtained from a centrally maintained primary copy.