Which kernel am I using?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Long story short, I installed 11.1 and have applied all the updates.

If I do a modprobe -l I get:

FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-pae/modules.dep

So I do an ls on /lib/modules:

server:/boot # ls -l /lib/modules
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 9 16:20 2.6.27.21-0.1-debug
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 9 16:20 2.6.27.21-0.1-default
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Apr 9 16:57 2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 9 16:20 2.6.27.21-0.1-trace
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 9 16:20 2.6.27.21-0.1-vmi
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 9 16:20 2.6.27.21-0.1-xen

And sure enough, 2.6.27.7-9-pae is not there. Out of curiosity I do an ls on /boot:

server:/boot # ls -l /boot
total 13534
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 1098261 Apr 1 19:52 System.map-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
-rw------- 1 root root 512 Mar 27 03:38 backup_mbr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Mar 27 03:23 boot → .
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 1236 Jan 7 20:03 boot.readme
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 95940 Apr 1 20:04 config-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Apr 9 16:47 grub
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Apr 9 16:58 initrd → initrd-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 5735567 Apr 9 16:58 initrd-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 Mar 27 03:21 lost+found
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 442880 Mar 27 03:38 message
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 155172 Apr 1 20:08 symsets-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae.tar.gz
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 406837 Apr 1 20:07 symtypes-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae.gz
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 120136 Apr 1 20:05 symvers-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae.gz
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 3220363 Apr 1 20:04 vmlinux-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Apr 9 16:57 vmlinuz → vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 2497968 Apr 1 19:52 vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae

Also, I do an rpm -qa | grep kernel and get:

server:/boot # rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-pae-extra-2.6.27.21-0.1.2
kernel-source-2.6.27.21-0.1.1
kernel-pae-base-2.6.27.21-0.1.2
linux-kernel-headers-2.6.27-2.28
kernel-pae-2.6.27.21-0.1.2

So it seems to me that my installation really thinks it’s running 2.6.27.21-0.1. However, my uname -a is:

server:/boot # uname -a
Linux server 2.6.27.7-9-pae #1 SMP 2008-12-04 18:10:04 +0100 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

It seems to me that according to uname, I am running kernel version 2.6.27.7-9-pae, and modprobe -l is looking in a directory according to that version. But I see no 2.6.27.7-9-pae kernel on my system – only 2.6.27.21-0.1? What am I missing? Any ideas how my system could be thinking it is 2.6.27.7-9?!? I’m very confused.

Thank you for any insight you can provide.

2

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Apr 9 16:57 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae

that is what you are running.

3

mark54g wrote:
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Apr 9 16:57 vmlinuz ->
> vmlinuz-2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
>
> that is what you are running.

Er, no, not exactly. That’s just the kernel on disk, which may not may
not mach what “uname -r” sais you’re runnning, e.g. when you just
upgraded the packages and forgot to reboot.

Kind regards,
Andreas Stieger

4

I’m not too familiar with servers, but is there a file akin to the /boot/grub/menu.lst you could consult? The default boot option could indicate which kernel is being initiated on launch.

5

My crystal ball also tells me, that somebody might have forgotten to reboot the machine after a kernel update…

(Which fits perfectly with the reported “errors” …)