Rudi Ahlers
2010-Jan-09 09:10 UTC
[Xen-users] Is it safe to run only the XEN kernel on dom0 host?
Hi, I have an issue with my XEN servers, in that when I do a yum upgrade, it upgrades the kernels, and then updates the grub.conf file to boot with the normal Linux kernel, and not the XEN kernel - and I tend to forget to update the grub.conf, until I reboot and see XEN isn''t running. So, is it safe to remove the normal kernel & kernel-development, and only run the XEN kernel? This is what I have currently: root@usaxen03:[~]$ rpm -qa | grep kernel kernel-xen-2.6.18-128.7.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.10.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.el5 kernel-headers-2.6.18-164.10.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.9.1.el5 When I want to remove kernel-headers, it wants to remove gcc as well: root@usaxen03:[~]$ rpm -qa | grep kernel kernel-xen-2.6.18-128.7.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.10.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.el5 kernel-headers-2.6.18-164.10.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 kernel-xen-2.6.18-164.9.1.el5 Do I really need gcc on the XEN dom0 host? -- Kind Regards Rudi Ahlers SoftDux Website: http://www.SoftDux.com Technical Blog: http://Blog.SoftDux.com Office: 087 805 9573 Cell: 082 554 7532 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Fajar A. Nugraha
2010-Jan-09 13:51 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] Is it safe to run only the XEN kernel on dom0 host?
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi@softdux.com> wrote:> Hi, > > I have an issue with my XEN servers, in that when I do a yum upgrade, it > upgrades the kernels, and then updates the grub.conf file to boot with > the normal Linux kernel, and not the XEN kernel - and I tend to forget > to update the grub.conf, until I reboot and see XEN isn''t running.Simply edit /etc/default/kernel. Set DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel-xen> > So, is it safe to remove the normal kernel & kernel-development, and > only run the XEN kernel?I do it on some of my servers.> When I want to remove kernel-headers, it wants to remove gcc as well: > Do I really need gcc on the XEN dom0 host?If you use dkms for some drivers, you''ll need gcc. If not, it should be safe to remove. -- Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Rudi Ahlers
2010-Jan-09 14:07 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] Is it safe to run only the XEN kernel on dom0 host?
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Fajar A. Nugraha <fajar@fajar.net> wrote:> On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi@softdux.com> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I have an issue with my XEN servers, in that when I do a yum upgrade, it >> upgrades the kernels, and then updates the grub.conf file to boot with >> the normal Linux kernel, and not the XEN kernel - and I tend to forget >> to update the grub.conf, until I reboot and see XEN isn''t running. > > Simply edit /etc/default/kernel. Set DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel-xen > >> >> So, is it safe to remove the normal kernel & kernel-development, and >> only run the XEN kernel? > > I do it on some of my servers. > >> When I want to remove kernel-headers, it wants to remove gcc as well: >> Do I really need gcc on the XEN dom0 host? > > If you use dkms for some drivers, you''ll need gcc. If not, it should > be safe to remove. > > -- > Fajar > > _______________________________________________Thank you Fajar. If a server runs XEN, and uses the XEN kernel, then what use is the normal kernel, kernel-devel & kernel-headers? -- Kind Regards Rudi Ahlers SoftDux Website: http://www.SoftDux.com Technical Blog: http://Blog.SoftDux.com Office: 087 805 9573 Cell: 082 554 7532 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Fajar A. Nugraha
2010-Jan-10 01:01 UTC
Re: [Xen-users] Is it safe to run only the XEN kernel on dom0 host?
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 9:07 PM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi@softdux.com> wrote:> Thank you Fajar. > > If a server runs XEN, and uses the XEN kernel, then what use is the > normal kernel, kernel-devel & kernel-headers?Kernel-headers is necessary if you''ll be doing any development/compiling on the server. normal kernel is necessary for fallback purposes. For example, in the past I had problems with networking breaks completely when using kernel-xen. Turns out it was NIC firwmare and bridge issue. I''d like to be able to fix my box (downloading firmware/drivers, etc.) when something like this happens, so usually I keep normal kernel installed. kernel-devel is necessary if you run (or intend to run) normal kernel, and you use need to compile addditional drivers (like with dkms or nvidia driver). In the past I build my own dkms drivers for tg3 and qla2xxx, since RH''s drivers were too old or didn''t have the feature I need. If you don''t need any of those you should be able to safely remove them. -- Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users