more yum problems

[Rick Stevens]

Rick Stevens wrote:
> Chuck Campbell wrote:
> 
>> yum found that my kernel is out of date, and I wanted to let it do the
>> update for me.  I did:
>>
>> [root at helium root]# yum update kernel*
>> Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
>> Server: ATrpms stable for rhl 9
>> Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
>> Server: Dag APT Repository
>> Server: Freshrpms packages for Red Hat Linux 9
>> Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
>> Finding updated packages
>> Downloading needed headers
>> Resolving dependencies
>> Dependencies resolved
>> I will do the following:
>> [install: kernel 2.4.20-31.9.i686]
>> Is this ok [y/N]: y
>> Downloading Packages
>> Running test transaction:
>> Test transaction complete, Success!
>>
>> tons of snipped messages saying /var is out of space
>>
>> I killed the yum process, cleaned up /var moved my /var/cache to a disk
>> with lots of space and symlinked /var/cache to that.
>>
>> I reran this:
>>
>> [root at helium root]# yum update kernel*
>> Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
>> Server: ATrpms stable for rhl 9
>> Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
>> Server: Dag APT Repository
>> Server: Freshrpms packages for Red Hat Linux 9
>> Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - Updates
>> Finding updated packages
>> Downloading needed headers
>> Resolving dependencies
>> Dependencies resolved
>> I will do the following:
>> [install: kernel 2.4.20-31.9.i686]
>> Is this ok [y/N]: y
>> Downloading Packages
>> Running test transaction:
>> Test transaction complete, Success!
>> kernel 100 % done 1/1 Kernel Updated/Installed, checking for bootloader
>> No bootloader found, Cannot configure kernel, continuing.
>> Installed:  kernel 2.4.20-31.9.i686
>> Transaction(s) Complete
>>
>>
>> Given this message, I'm afraid to reboot to the new kernel, even 
>> though the
>> /boot looks ok (all appropos files and links are there.
>>
>> How do I tell if my bootloader is really gone, and if so, put it back
>> before I reboot this new kernel?
> 
> 
> If you use lilo, verify that /etc/lilo.conf looks OK.  If it looks
> good to go, try running /sbin/lilo.  It should complain if there's
> something it doesn't like.  If you use grub, verify that
> /boot/grub/grub.conf looks good.  If you want to check it, the only
> way I know of is to try to run grub-install, e.g. "grub-install
> /dev/hda".
> 
> Also make sure you have a /boot/initrd-kernelversion.img file if your
> root partition is on a SCSI disk, ext3 filesystem or an NFS volume (or
> any combination of the three), as the necessary modules must be in the
> initrd RAMdisk image.

Oh, I forgot to add that you may wish to reinstall your boot loader
RPM off the CD by using

	rpm -Uvh --force /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/whatever.rpm

then upgrading it via yum.

BTW, you can change where yum saves it stuff rather than symlinking
/var/cache/yum.  Just edit the "cachedir=/var/cache/yum" line in your
/etc/yum.conf file.  Also look at the "logfile=" line.

I also recommend you set up some mirrors for your updates as the default
Red Hat servers are often overloaded and since RH9 is now EOL, you won't
find any updates past those prior to April 30, 2004. Fortunately, the
Fedora Legacy group will support it for a while (they even have updates
for 7.2!).  You can get a list of the Fedora Legacy servers at:

http://www.fedoralegacy.org/download/fedoralegacy-mirrors.php

To use the mirror at fermilab (which is the one I use), you can modify
your /etc/yum.conf's "baseurl" line under the "[updates-released]"
section to something like:

baseurl=http://linux.fnal.gov/linux/legacy/redhat/9/updates/i386

Nice of them, no?
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-    If your broker is so damned smart...why is he still working?    -
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