Chapter 3 Installation and Availability

Table of Contents

You can install Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 on Oracle Linux 6 Update 4 or newer, running either the Red Hat compatible kernel or a previous version of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. If you are still running an older version of Oracle Linux, first update your system to the latest available update release.

The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 is supported on the x86-64 architecture but not on x86.

3.1 Installation Overview

If you have a subscription to Oracle Unbreakable Linux support, you can obtain the packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 by registering your system with the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and subscribing it to additional channels. See Section 3.2, “Subscribing to ULN Channels”.

If your system is not registered with ULN, you can obtain most of the packages from Oracle Yum Server. See Section 3.3, “Enabling Access to Oracle Yum Server Channels”.

If you have previously installed any OFED packages on your system, and you want to replace these with the latest packages that are provided on the ol6_x86_64_ofed_UEK channel, you must manually remove some of the existing packages. See Section 3.4, “Upgrading OFED Packages”.

Having subscribed your system to the appropriate channels on ULN or Oracle Yum Server, upgrade your system. See Section 3.5, “Upgrading Your System”.

3.2 Subscribing to ULN Channels

The kernel image and user-space packages are available on the following ULN channels:

  • ol6_x86_64_latest (latest user-space packages for Oracle Linux 6 other than DTrace, OFED, and DRBD packages)

  • ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest (kernel-uek*, dtrace-modules-*, libdtrace-*, and uname26)

  • ol6_x86_64_Dtrace_userspace_latest (dtrace-utils*)

  • ol6_x86_64_ofed_UEK (latest OFED tools packages)

  • ol6_x86_64_mysql-ha-utils (drbd84-utils)

The following procedure assumes that you have already registered your system with ULN.

To subscribe your system to a channel on ULN:

  1. Log in to https://linux.oracle.com with your ULN user name and password.

  2. On the Systems tab, click the link named for the system in the list of registered machines.

  3. On the System Details page, click Manage Subscriptions.

  4. On the System Summary page, select each required channel from the list of available channels and click the right arrow to move the channel to the list of subscribed channels.

    Subscribe the system to the ol6_x86_64_latest and ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest channels. If required, you can also add the channels for the DTrace, OFED, and DRBD packages. You do not need to subscribe the system to the ol6_x86_64_UEK_latest channel.

  5. Click Save Subscriptions.

For information about using ULN, see Oracle® Linux: Unbreakable Linux Network User's Guide for Oracle Linux 6 and Oracle Linux 7.

3.3 Enabling Access to Oracle Yum Server Channels

At the Oracle Yum Server repository at https://yum.oracle.com/, the kernel image and user-space packages are available on the following channels:

  • ol6_latest (latest user-space packages for Oracle Linux 6 other than the OFED tool packages)

  • ol6_UEKR3_latest (kernel-uek*, dtrace-modules-*, libdtrace-*, and uname26)

  • ol6_ofed_UEK (latest OFED tools packages)

Note

The DTrace utility and DRBD packages are not available on Oracle Yum Server.

To enable access to the channels on Oracle Yum Server, create entries such as the following in /etc/yum.conf or in a repository file in the /etc/yum.repos.d directory: 

[ol6_latest]
name=Oracle Linux $releasever Latest ($basearch)
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/latest/$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

[ol6_UEK_latest]
name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch)
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEK/latest/$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=0

[ol6_UEKR3_latest]
name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch)
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/UEKR3/latest/$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

[ol6_playground_latest]
name=Latest mainline stable kernel for Oracle Linux 6 ($basearch) - Unsupported
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/playground/latest/$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=0

[ol6_ofed_UEK]
name=OFED supporting tool packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel on Oracle Linux 6 ($basearch)
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/ofed_UEK/$basearch/
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle
gpgcheck=1
enabled=0

To enable a channel, set the value of the enabled parameter for the channel to 1.

To disable a channel, set the value of the enabled parameter for the channel to 0.

In this example, access is enabled to the ol6_latest and ol6_UEKR3_latest channels but not to the ol6_UEK_latest, ol6_playground_latest and ol6_ofed_UEK channels.

You can find more information about installing the software at https://yum.oracle.com/, from where you download a copy of a suitable repository file (https://yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo).

Note

By default, the ol6_x86_64_UEK_latest channel is enabled and the ol6_UEKR3_latest channel is disabled in the public-yum-ol6.repo file. To be able to install the kernel packages for UEK R3, you must enable the ol6_UEKR3_latest channel. You can disable the ol6_UEK_latest channel.

3.4 Upgrading OFED Packages

If you have enabled the ol6_ofed_UEK channel, you must remove any existing OFED packages for the 32-bit x86 architecture before you can upgrade the remaining OFED packages on your system. You must also completely remove and reinstall the ibutils packages. The latest version of the ibutils package no longer depends on an ibutils-libs package as the libraries are now included in ibutils itself.

  1. Use the following command to remove any non-upgradable packages for the x86 architecture: 

    # rpm -e infiniband-diags-1.5.12-5.el6.i686 \
libibcm-1.0.5-3.el6.i686 \
libibcm-devel-1.0.5-3.el6.i686 \
libibmad-1.3.9-1.el6.i686 \
libibmad-devel-1.3.9-1.el6.i686 \
libibumad-1.3.8-1.el6.i686 \
libibumad-devel-1.3.8-1.el6.i686 \
libibverbs-1.1.6-5.el6.i686 \
libibverbs-devel-1.1.6-5.el6.i686 \
libmlx4-1.0.4-1.el6.i686 \
librdmacm-1.0.17-0.git4b5c1aa.el6.i686 \
librdmacm-devel-1.0.17-0.git4b5c1aa.el6.i686 \
opensm-devel-3.3.15-1.el6.i686 \
opensm-libs-3.3.15-1.el6.i686 \
ibacm-devel-1.0.8-0.git7a3adb7.el6.i686

  2. Enter the following commands to remove the existing ibutils and ibutils-libs packages and install the new ibutils package: 

    # rpm -e ibutils-1.5.7-7.el6.x86_64 \
ibutils-libs-1.5.7-7.el6.x86_64
# yum install ibutils

3.5 Upgrading Your System

After enabling access to the appropriate channels, including ol6_UEKR3_latest, in the Oracle Yum Server repository or ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest on ULN, run the following command to upgrade the system to UEK R3: 

# yum update

If you have questions regarding configuring or using yum to install updates, refer to Oracle® Linux 6: Administrator's Solutions Guide.

The kernel's source code is available via a public git source code repository at https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=linux-uek3-3.8.git.

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