Chapter 3 Installation and Availability

Table of Contents

You can install Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 (UEK R3) 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.

UEK R3 is supported on the x86-64 architecture but not on x86.

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.

Starting with Oracle Linux 6 Update 5 for x86-64, UEK R3 is the default boot kernel for fresh installations of Oracle Linux.

For systems that are running UEK R3 and are subscribed to the ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest channel on ULN, or the ol6_UEKR3_latest repository in the Oracle Oracle Yum Server repository, you upgrade to the latest UEK release as follows:

  1. Upgrade all packages on the system, including kernel packages. 

    # yum update

    By default, the boot manager automatically enables the most recent kernel version so you do not need to change your GRUB configuration.

  2. Reboot the system. 

    # shutdown -r now

For systems that are currently running a previous version of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK R2) or the Red Hat compatible kernel (RHCK), you can switch to UEK R3 at any time. For details, see:

3.1 Switching a System to UEK R3 (ULN)

If you have a subscription to Oracle Unbreakable Linux support, you can obtain the packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 (UEK R3) by registering your system with the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and subscribing it to additional channels.

Before you begin:

To Switch a System to UEK R3:

  1. Using a browser, log in at https://linux.oracle.com with the ULN user name and password that you used to register the system.

  2. On the Systems tab, click the link named of your 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 in the Available Channels list and click the right arrow to move the channel to the Subscribed Channels list.

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

    Channel Name and Label

    Description

    Oracle Linux 6 Latest (x86_64)

    ol6_x86_64_latest

    All packages released for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64) including the latest errata packages. (x86_64).

    Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64) - Latest

    ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest

    Latest packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64).

    Contains the kernel-uek*,
    dtrace-modules-*, libdtrace-*, and uname26 packages.

    Oracle Linux 6 Dtrace Userspace Tools (x86_64) - Latest

    ol6_x86_64_Dtrace_userspace_latest

    The latest DTrace userspace tools for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64).

    Contains the dtrace-utils* packages.

    OFED supporting tool packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel on Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64)

    ol6_x86_64_ofed_UEK

    Latest OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) supporting tools for the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) on Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64).

    HA Utilities for MySQL and Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64)

    ol6_x86_64_mysql-ha-utils

    Management Utilities for MySQL HA with Oracle Linux 6.

    Contains the drbd84-utils package.

    As a minimum, you should subscribe the system to the ol6_x86_64_latest and the ol6_x86_64_UEKR3_latest channels. If required, you can also add the channels for the DTrace, OFED, and DRBD packages.

    Caution

    Take care not to select the ol6_x86_64_UEK_BETA channel.

    Because you are switching to the latest UEK kernel, you no longer need to subscribe the system to the previous UEK R2 (ol6_x86_64_UEK_latest) channel.

  5. When you have finished selecting channels, click Save Subscriptions and log out of ULN.

  6. Log in as root on the system.

  7. Upgrade all packages on the system, including kernel packages. 

    # yum update

    By default, the boot manager automatically enables the most recent kernel version so you do not need to change your GRUB configuration.

  8. Reboot the system. 

    # shutdown -r now

3.2 Switching a System to UEK R3 (Oracle Yum Server)

If your system is not registered with ULN, you can obtain most of the packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 (UEK R3) from Oracle Yum Server by subscribing it to additional repositories.

Before you begin:

  • Check that the system meets the requirements for installing UEK R3.

    For details, see Chapter 3, Installation and Availability.

  • Remove some of the existing OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) packages.

    You only need to do this if you have installed any OFED packages on your system and you want to replace them with the latest OFED tools packages. The packages have to be removed manually, see Section 3.3, “Upgrading OFED Packages”.

To Switch a System to UEK R3:

  1. Log in as root on the system.

  2. Change directory to /etc/yum.repos.d. 

    # cd /etc/yum.repos.d
    Note

    This assumes that yum on your system is configured to find repository files in the default /etc/yum.repos.d directory.

  3. Download the Oracle Linux 6 repository configuration file, https://yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo.

    For example: 

    # wget https://yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo

    The /etc/yum.repos.d directory is updated with the repository configuration file.

  4. Enable the required repositories by editing the public-yum-ol6.repo file.

    You enable or disable repositories in the file by setting the value of the enabled directive to 1 or 0 as required.

    The kernel image and user-space packages are available on the following Oracle Yum Server repositories:

    Repository

    Description

    ol6_latest

    All packages released for Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64) including the latest errata packages.

    ol6_UEKR3_latest

    Latest packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3 for Oracle Linux 6.

    Contains the kernel-uek*, dtrace-modules-*, libdtrace-*, and uname26 packages.

    ol6_ofed_UEK

    Latest OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) supporting tools for the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) on Oracle Linux 6 (x86_64).

    As a minimum, you should enable the ol6_latest and the ol6_UEKR3_latest repositories.

    Note

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

    Because you are switching to the latest UEK kernel, you can disable the previous UEK R2 (ol6_UEK_latest) repository.

    In the following example, the ol6_UEKR3_latest repository is enabled, and the ol6_UEK_latest repository is disabled: 

    [ol6_UEKR3_latest]
name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 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_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

  5. Upgrade all packages on the system, including kernel packages. 

    # yum update

    By default, the boot manager automatically enables the most recent kernel version so you do not need to change your GRUB configuration.

  6. Reboot the system. 

    # shutdown -r now

3.3 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.

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

# rpm -e infiniband-diags \
libibcm \
libibcm-devel \
libibmad \
libibmad-devel \
libibumad \
libibumad-devel \
libibverbs \
libibverbs-devel \
libmlx4 \
librdmacm \
librdmacm-devel \
opensm-devel \
opensm-libs \
ibacm-devel

Use the following commands to remove the existing ibutils and ibutils-libs packages and install the new ibutils package: 

# rpm -e ibutils ibutils-libs
# yum install ibutils

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