How to plan a kernel update ?

How to plan a kernel update ?

[Weber Ress]

Hi,

I'm responsible to planning a kernel upgrade in many servers, from 2.4
version to 2.6.13 (last stable version), using Debian 3.1r0a

My team has good technical skills, but they need to be led. I would
like know, what's the best pratices and recommendations that a project
manager need think BEFORE an kernel upgrade.

A technical guy have a particular vision about this upgrade, but I
will be very been thankful if I receive from this community another
vision.. a vision centered in the project process (planning,
executing, controlling) to make this activity successfully.

Thank's !

Weber Ress

Re: How to plan a kernel update ?

[Michael Thonke]

Hello,

I won't be harsh but google is your best friend and first source for it.

please take a look at:

http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT3855888078.html

They have a good guide and what should need attention in migrating to Kernel 2.6 
They also have related articles for drivers in Kernel 2.6,NPTL and such.

Best regards

--
Michael Thonke



Weber Ress schrieb:

>Hi,
>
>I'm responsible to planning a kernel upgrade in many servers, from 2.4
>version to 2.6.13 (last stable version), using Debian 3.1r0a
>
>My team has good technical skills, but they need to be led. I would
>like know, what's the best pratices and recommendations that a project
>manager need think BEFORE an kernel upgrade.
>
>A technical guy have a particular vision about this upgrade, but I
>will be very been thankful if I receive from this community another
>vision.. a vision centered in the project process (planning,
>executing, controlling) to make this activity successfully.
>
>Thank's !
>
>Weber Ress
>-
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Re: How to plan a kernel update ?

[linux-os (Dick Johnson)]

On Thu, 8 Sep 2005, Weber Ress wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm responsible to planning a kernel upgrade in many servers, from 2.4
> version to 2.6.13 (last stable version), using Debian 3.1r0a
>
> My team has good technical skills, but they need to be led. I would
> like know, what's the best pratices and recommendations that a project
> manager need think BEFORE an kernel upgrade.
>
> A technical guy have a particular vision about this upgrade, but I
> will be very been thankful if I receive from this community another
> vision.. a vision centered in the project process (planning,
> executing, controlling) to make this activity successfully.
>
> Thank's !
>
> Weber Ress

I think you need to get a new distribution from your vendor and
NOT try to just upgrade the kernel. The vendor has already made
certain that the utilities provided with the new distribution work
together. It is a gigantic jump from 2.4 to 2.6 and you may find
that some things don't work as planned.

Then, you should build up an otherwise unused server using your
existing configuration and server programs. It should be a clone
of an existing one with its IP address changed to something
unimportant. Then you should upgrade this server with an entire
new distribution from your favorite vendor.

Once that server is up, you can test its functionality and
verify that all its programs play nicely together. If they
don't, you can modify or rebuild anything that needs to be
fixed BEFORE it goes onto a production server.

Never just grab a new distribution and upgrade a production
server. Even if you have to purchase another box to experiment
with before the upgrade it will be worth it in the long run.
With production servers, never just upgrade the kernel unless
the version numbers between what you have and what you will
have are very close. Even that's not truly safe but you can
dual-boot to get back to the previous kernel if everything
falls apart. You see, it's possible that one or more of your
programs rely upon some side-effects or bugs in an older kernel.
If that bug gets fixed, your program(s) may no longer work
(think data-bases after an off-by-one lseek bug-fix).

Once you have upgraded the emulated server and know what to
fix, upgrade the others one-at-a-time.


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.6.13 on an i686 machine (5589.54 BogoMips).
Warning : 98.36% of all statistics are fiction.
.
I apologize for the following. I tried to kill it with the above dot :

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Thank you.

Re: How to plan a kernel update ?

[Jesper Juhl]

On 9/8/05, Weber Ress <ress.weber@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm responsible to planning a kernel upgrade in many servers, from 2.4
> version to 2.6.13 (last stable version), using Debian 3.1r0a
> 
> My team has good technical skills, but they need to be led. I would
> like know, what's the best pratices and recommendations that a project
> manager need think BEFORE an kernel upgrade.
> 
> A technical guy have a particular vision about this upgrade, but I
> will be very been thankful if I receive from this community another
> vision.. a vision centered in the project process (planning,
> executing, controlling) to make this activity successfully.
> 

Ok, I'm no project manager, I guess I'd be clasified as one of the
"technical guys", but I do upgrade a lot of kernels, so I'll tell you
a little about what I do and what I'd recommend. Then you can do with
that info what you like :)

The very first thing you want to do is to ensure that all core
utilities/tools are up-to-date to versions that will work with your
new kernel.
If you download a copy of the 2.6.13 kernel source, extract it, and
look in the file Documentation/Changes you'll see a list of tools and
utils along with the minimum required version for them to work
properly with that kernel. Ensure those tools are OK.

Once you are sure the core utils are up-to-date you need to go check
whatever other important programs you have on the machine(s) and check
that those are also able to run OK with the new kernel.

Once you are satisfied that everything is up to a level that'll work
with the new kernel you can go build the new 2.6.13 kernel and drop it
in place. You don't need to remove your existing kernel first, you can
just install the 2.6.13 kernel side by side with the old one and test
boot it, then if it doesn't work right you can always reboot back to
the old one.


Most likely you can find documentation for your distribution stating
what version of it is "2.6 ready" - I use Slackware for example, and
Slackware 10.1 is completely 2.6 kernel ready, so on a Slackware 10.1
box there's no hassle at all, I just drop in a 2.6 kernel in place of
the 2.4 one it installs by default and everything is good - all tools
are already ready to cope.



-- 
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Don't top-post  http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please      http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

Re: How to plan a kernel update ?

[Weber Ress]

Thank's for all to help me. I can resume this conversation in two topics:

- If I have a server with 2.4, it's interesting create a process to
make frequent kernel update (2.4.1, 2.4.2, 2.4.3, etc), until the
latest 2.4 stable version. The same process be equal to a 2.6 server.

- To change a server in 2.4 stable version to 2.6 stable version, it's
interesting create a new server and reinstall all applications.

thank's

Weber Ress


On 9/8/05, Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/8/05, Weber Ress <ress.weber@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm responsible to planning a kernel upgrade in many servers, from 2.4
> > version to 2.6.13 (last stable version), using Debian 3.1r0a
> >
> > My team has good technical skills, but they need to be led. I would
> > like know, what's the best pratices and recommendations that a project
> > manager need think BEFORE an kernel upgrade.
> >
> > A technical guy have a particular vision about this upgrade, but I
> > will be very been thankful if I receive from this community another
> > vision.. a vision centered in the project process (planning,
> > executing, controlling) to make this activity successfully.
> >
> 
> Ok, I'm no project manager, I guess I'd be clasified as one of the
> "technical guys", but I do upgrade a lot of kernels, so I'll tell you
> a little about what I do and what I'd recommend. Then you can do with
> that info what you like :)
> 
> The very first thing you want to do is to ensure that all core
> utilities/tools are up-to-date to versions that will work with your
> new kernel.
> If you download a copy of the 2.6.13 kernel source, extract it, and
> look in the file Documentation/Changes you'll see a list of tools and
> utils along with the minimum required version for them to work
> properly with that kernel. Ensure those tools are OK.
> 
> Once you are sure the core utils are up-to-date you need to go check
> whatever other important programs you have on the machine(s) and check
> that those are also able to run OK with the new kernel.
> 
> Once you are satisfied that everything is up to a level that'll work
> with the new kernel you can go build the new 2.6.13 kernel and drop it
> in place. You don't need to remove your existing kernel first, you can
> just install the 2.6.13 kernel side by side with the old one and test
> boot it, then if it doesn't work right you can always reboot back to
> the old one.
> 
> 
> Most likely you can find documentation for your distribution stating
> what version of it is "2.6 ready" - I use Slackware for example, and
> Slackware 10.1 is completely 2.6 kernel ready, so on a Slackware 10.1
> box there's no hassle at all, I just drop in a 2.6 kernel in place of
> the 2.4 one it installs by default and everything is good - all tools
> are already ready to cope.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
> Don't top-post  http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
> Plain text mails only, please      http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
>