Why does old kernel boot when new kernel installed?

[Nico Morrison <nico morrison micronicos com>]

I thought I'd summarise this with a proper subject line:

1. We used up2date to upgrade the kernel of a 7.2 machine that is doing far
too much journalling (kjournald at 50% CPU+ often).

2. It installed fine, but when we reboot - GRUB only shows the old 2.4.7-10
although there are 3 kernels listed in grub.conf

My Question is "How can we select booting to 2.4.18-24.7 when GRUB lonly
lists the oldest kernel?"

Here are the contents of the directory /boot & also of grub.conf

<SNIP>
[root ns5 boot]# ls -al
total 10908
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root         4096 Feb  6 09:27 .
drwxr-xr-x   23 root     root         4096 Feb  6 09:56 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         5824 Jun 25  2001 boot.b
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          612 Jun 25  2001 chain.b
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        42268 Nov 14 01:50 config-2.4.18-18.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        42257 Jan 31 12:20 config-2.4.18-24.7.x
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         4096 Feb  6 09:16 grub
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       126906 Dec 16 10:34
initrd-2.4.18-18.7.x.img
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       127368 Feb  6 09:15
initrd-2.4.18-24.7.x.img
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       337546 Feb 22  2002 initrd-2.4.7-10.img
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           14 Dec 16 10:33 kernel.h ->
kernel.h-2.4.9
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          405 Dec 16 10:33 kernel.h-2.4.9
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        23108 Jun 25  2001 message
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           25 Feb  6 09:15 module-info ->
module-info-2.4.18-24.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        15436 Nov 14 01:50
module-info-2.4.18-18.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        15436 Jan 31 12:20
module-info-2.4.18-24.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        13598 Sep  6  2001 module-info-2.4.7-10
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          640 Jun 25  2001 os2_d.b
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           19 Feb  6 09:27 System.map ->
System.map-2.4.7-10
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       490460 Nov 14 01:50
System.map-2.4.18-18.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       490643 Jan 31 12:20
System.map-2.4.18-24.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       435039 Sep  6  2001 System.map-2.4.7-10
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      2983920 Nov 14 01:50
vmlinux-2.4.18-18.7.x
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      2986554 Jan 31 12:20
vmlinux-2.4.18-24.7.x
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           21 Feb  6 09:15 vmlinuz ->
vmlinuz-2.4.18-24.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1064284 Nov 14 01:50
vmlinuz-2.4.18-18.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1064546 Jan 31 12:20
vmlinuz-2.4.18-24.7.x
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       802068 Sep  6  2001 vmlinuz-2.4.7-10
</SNIP>


<SNIP>
[root ns5 grub]# cat grub.conf 
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You do not have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
#          root (hd0,1)
#          kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/md0
#          initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-24.7.x)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-24.7.x ro root=/dev/md0
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-24.7.x.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-18.7.x)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-18.7.x ro root=/dev/md0
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-18.7.x.img
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.7-10)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/md0
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.img
</SNIP>

The ONLY oddity I can see is that the symblink in /boot below might be
wrong:

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           19 Feb  6 09:27 System.map ->
System.map-2.4.7-10

Surely this should point to System.map-2.4.18-24.7.x

Can anyone suggest why GRUB is not showing all 3 kernels & why we are not
booting into the leatest?

Many thanks to all.

Regards,
Nico Morrison - Director
nico morrison micronicos com
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