Installation and Availability

4 Installation and Availability

You can install Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 on Oracle Linux 7.7, or later, and on Oracle Linux 8.1, or later, by running either the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) or a previous release of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. If you are still running an older version of Oracle Linux, you must first update your system to the latest available update release.

Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 is supported on x86-64 platforms but not on x86. The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 is also supported on 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms.

Installation Overview

If you have a subscription to Oracle Unbreakable Linux support, you can obtain the packages for Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 by registering your system with the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and subscribing it to additional channels. See Subscribing to ULN Channels.

If your system is not registered with ULN, you can obtain most of the packages from Oracle Linux yum server. See Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories.

Having subscribed your system to the appropriate channels on ULN or Oracle Linux yum server, upgrade your system. See Upgrading Your System.

Subscribing to ULN Channels

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

To subscribe your system to a channel on ULN:

Log in to https://linux.oracle.com with your ULN user name and password.
On the Systems tab, click the link named for the system in the list of registered machines.
On the System Details page, click Manage Subscriptions.
On the System Summary page, select each of the required channels from the list of available channels, then click the right arrow to move the channel to the list of subscribed channels.
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 or Oracle Linux: Managing Software on Oracle Linux.

Oracle Linux 7

The kernel image and user space packages are available on the ol7_x86_64_UEKR6 ULN channel for Oracle Linux 7 on x86_64 platforms. For aarch64 platforms, these packages are available on the ol7_aarch64_UEKR6 ULN channel.

Oracle Linux 8

Kernel image and user space packages are available on the following ULN channels for Oracle Linux 8 on x86_64 platforms:

ol8_x86_64_UEKR6
ol8_x86_64_baseos_latest

Oracle Linux 8 kernel image and user space packages for Oracle Linux 8 (aarch64) are made available by default on the ol8_aarch64_baseos_latest ULN channel.

Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories

Packages for UEK R6 and associated user space applications are available on the Oracle Linux yum server at https://yum.oracle.com/.

Oracle Linux 7

All kernel image and associated user space packages for Oracle Linux 7 on the x86_64 and aarch64 platforms are available in the ol7_UEKR6 repository.

To enable access to the Oracle Linux 7 repositories on the Oracle Linux yum server, use yum-config-manager. For example, to enable access to the ol7_latest and ol7_UEKR6 repositories, run the following:

sudo yum-config-manager --enable ol7_latest ol7_UEKR6

Note:

You can only use yum-config-manager to enable or disable repositories where you already have a configuration file for the specified repository. Repository configurations are typically stored in /etc/yum.repos.d. The repository configurations required to install UEK on Oracle Linux 7 are included in the oraclelinux-release-el7 package. You may need to update this package to the latest version to obtain the correct yum repository configuration.

See Oracle Linux 7: Administrator's Guide for more information.

Oracle Linux 8

Kernel images and all associated user space packages for Oracle Linux 8 on x86_64 platforms are available by enabling the ol8_UEKR6, ol8_baseos_latest and ol8_addons repositories.

For aarch64 platforms, these packages are provided by default within the ol8_baseos_latest repository.

To enable access to the Oracle Linux 8 repositories for the x86_64 platform on the Oracle Linux yum server, use dnf config-manager. For example, to enable access to the ol8_baseos_latest, ol8_addons and ol8_UEKR6 repositories, run the following command:

sudo dnf config-manager --enable ol8_baseos_latest ol8_addons ol8_UEKR6

Note:

You can only use dnf config-manager to enable or disable repositories where you already have a configuration file for the specified repository. Repository configurations are typically stored in /etc/yum.repos.d. The repository configurations required to install UEK on Oracle Linux 8 are included in the oraclelinux-release-el8 package. You may need to update this package to the latest version to obtain the correct yum repository configuration.

See Oracle Linux: Managing Software on Oracle Linux for more information.

Upgrading Your System

To upgrade your system to Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6:

Enable access to the appropriate ULN channels or yum repositories as described in Subscribing to ULN Channels and Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories. It is good practice to disable any other UEK channels or repositories that you may have configured previously.
After enabling access to the appropriate channels, run the following command to upgrade the system to UEK R6 on Oracle Linux 7:
```
sudo yum update
```
Alternatively, run the following command on Oracle Linux 8:
```
sudo dnf update
```
After upgrading the system, reboot it, selecting the UEK R6 kernel (version 5.4) if this is not the default boot kernel.

For more information about using yum and dnf to install updates, see Oracle Linux: Unbreakable Linux Network User's Guide for Oracle Linux 6 and Oracle Linux 7 or Oracle Linux: Managing Software on Oracle Linux.

Installing Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages for x86_64 platforms

The following procedure describes how to install the RDMA release packages. The instructions describe how to remove previous existing oracle-ofed-release packages and other previously installed RDMA packages that could cause conflicts during the installation of the oracle-rdma-release packages. Note that the yum commands used in this procedure are interchangeable with the dnf command available in Oracle Linux 8.

In addition to the ULN channels and yum repositories described in Subscribing to ULN Channels and Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories, subscribe the system to the appropriate RDMA ULN channel or yum repository.

If you are using the Oracle Linux yum server you should enable the ol7_UEKR6_RDMA repository for Oracle Linux 7; or the ol8_UEKR6_RDMA repository for Oracle Linux 8. For example, on Oracle Linux 7 run the following command:
```
sudo yum-config-manager --enable ol7_latest ol7_UEKR6 ol7_UEKR6_RDMA
```
On Oracle Linux 8 run the following command:
```
sudo dnf config-manager --enable ol8_baseos_latest ol8_UEKR6 ol8_UEKR6_RDMA
```
If you are subscribed to ULN, you can subscribe to ol7_x86_64_UEKR6_RDMA for Oracle Linux 7; or ol8_x86_64_UEKR6_RDMA for Oracle Linux 8.

Remove any existing packages that are related to RDMA, for example:

sudo yum remove 'ibacm*'
sudo yum remove 'ib-bonding*'
sudo yum remove 'ibutils*'
sudo yum remove 'infiniband-diags*'
sudo yum remove 'libibacl*'
sudo yum remove 'libibcm*'
sudo yum remove 'libibmad*'
sudo yum remove 'libibumad*'
sudo yum remove 'libibverbs*'
sudo yum remove 'libmlx4*'
sudo yum remove 'librdmacm*'
sudo yum remove 'libsdp*'
sudo yum remove 'mstflint*'
sudo yum remove 'ofed-docs*'
sudo yum remove 'ofed-scripts*'
sudo yum remove 'opensm*'
sudo yum remove 'oracle-rdma-tools'
sudo yum remove 'perftest*'
sudo yum remove 'qperf*'
sudo yum remove 'sdpnetstat*'
sudo yum remove 'rdma*'
sudo yum remove 'rds-tools*'
sudo yum remove 'rdma-core*'

Clean all yum cached files from all enabled repositories:
```
sudo yum clean all
```
Install the RDMA packages for UEK R6.
- If you are installing the packages on a bare-metal system, run the following command:
```
sudo yum install oracle-rdma-release
```
- If you are installing the packages on a virtualized platform (either on a Xen or KVM guest), run the following command, instead:
```
sudo yum install oracle-rdma-release-guest
```
- (Optional) If you require the libpcap package, you must install this separately:
```
sudo yum install libpcap
```

Each UEK release requires a different set of RDMA packages. If you change the kernel on your system to a UEK release before UEK R6, remove the existing UEK R6-based RDMA packages before installing the correct packages for the new kernel by running the following command:

sudo yum remove --setopt=clean_requirements_on_remove=1 oracle-rdma-release

Note that on Oracle Linux 8, this command may not work for all of the related packages. For instance, the libpcap package is a dependency for key system packages and cannot be removed. Use the dnf history undo command to roll back and remove the dependencies for the rdma-core package, for example:

sudo dnf history undo rdma-core

Caution:

Downgrading UEK versions is not advisable, except for testing purposes.

Upgrading Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages for x86_64 platforms

Typical upgrade of Oracle-supported RDMA package can be achieved using the dnf update or yum update command. Note that the yum commands used in this procedure are interchangeable with the dnf command available in Oracle Linux 8.

If you are upgrading a system where the oracle-rdma-release or oracle-rdma-release-guest package is installed and the package version is lower than version 0.18.1-1 and you intend to upgrade to version 0.18.1-1 or above, you must first manually remove the rdma-core-devel package before performing the upgrade. You should remove this package using the rpm -e --nodeps command to remove the package outside of the standard yum or dnf package manager control and leaving any dependencies intact, for example:

sudo /bin/rpm -e --nodeps rdma-core-devel
sudo yum update

If you are upgrading an older system where the oracle-ofed-release or oracle-ofed-release-guest package is installed and you intend to upgrade to oracle-rdma-release or oracle-rdma-release-guest version 0.18.1-1 or above, you must manually remove development packages that were installed for OFED before performing the upgrade or installation of the oracle-rdma-release or oracle-rdma-release-guest package:

sudo /bin/rpm -e --nodeps libibumad-devel libibverbs-devel librdmacm-devel libibmad-devel
sudo yum install oracle-rdma-release-guest

Note that these steps are only required for the transition from versions of the oracle-rdma-release and oracle-rdma-release-guest packages prior to 0.18.1-1 to version 0.18.1-1 or later; or for the transition from oracle-ofed-release to oracle-rdma-release version 0.18.1-1 or later. These steps are not required for upgrades after your packages are at version 0.18.1-1 or later.