Help: unable to boot to new kernel after upgrading
We have just upgraded the Redhat Linux kernel on some of our servers lately via Redhat Network Agent. The kernel and rdinit file was installed correctly as we could see them in the /boot directory and the bootloader .ini file as well.
However, after we rebooted the servers, they just went right back to the current kernel instead of the new kernel. Since our servers are operating on SCSI Raid 5 disk array currently and they need to boot up with a floppy boot disk each time, we make a new copy of boot disk with the following command:
mkbootdisk 2.4.9-31smp (the new kernel)
The problem is, we couldn't create the bootdisk this way! It returned the following error message:
Insert a disk in /dev/fd0. Any information on the disk will be lost.
Press <Enter> to continue or ^C to abort:
Formatting /dev/fd0... done.
Copying /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.9-31smp... done.
Creating initrd image...
gzip: stdout: No space left on device
done.
Setting up syslinux... cat: write error: No space left on device
done.
It looks to us that there is no enough space on the boot up disk to contain the initrd file! Which means we're stucked! Why did Redhat create a Ram file which is too big to fit on a floppy disk?? We don't understand what these people are doing. The only version that can boot correctly now is: 2.4.7-10smp & 2.4.9-34 (non-smp). We want to load 2.4.9-34smp because the old kernel 2.4.7-10smp is quite sluggish in performance. Any suggestion how we can work around this problem? Thanks.
Tom
