1. Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 Update 1 - Release Notes (5.15.0-100)
  2. Installation and Availability

5 Installation and Availability

This chapter provides information about the availability of UEK R7 on Oracle Linux and includes installation and instructions on upgrading from a previous UEK release to UEK R7.

UEK R7 is supported on the Intel® 64-bit x86_64, AMD 64-bit x86_64, and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms.

About Upgrading From a Previous Oracle Linux or UEK Release to UEK R7

UEK R7 is made available for installation on Oracle Linux 8, starting with the Oracle Linux 8.5 release. By default, Oracle Linux 9 ships with UEK R7.

The suggested migration path for upgrading the system from an earlier UEK release to UEK R7 is as follows:

  • If you're running Oracle Linux 7 with an earlier UEK release, upgrade the operating system to the latest Oracle Linux 8 release. For instructions on upgrading the Oracle Linux 7 system, see Oracle Linux 8: Upgrading Systems With Leapp.

  • If you're running an Oracle Linux 8 release that's earlier than Oracle Linux 8.5 with UEK R6, first upgrade the system to the latest Oracle Linux 8 update release. From here, you can upgrade to UEK R7. If you're already running Oracle Linux 8.5 or later with UEK R6, you can directly upgrade the system to UEK R7.

    For instructions on upgrading an Oracle Linux 8 system to Oracle Linux 9, see Oracle Linux 9: Upgrading Systems With Leapp.

Important:

In UEK R7, the default page size for the 64-bit Arm (aarch64) architecture has changed to 4 KB default, from the previous 64 KB default. The new 4 KB default page size might have significant implications on Arm-based systems that are running Oracle Linux 8 with an earlier UEK release, with either a Btrfs or an XFS file system.

  • If an Arm-based system uses a Btrfs or an XFS file system, and you're running Oracle Linux 8 with an earlier UEK release, you might not be able to upgrade to UEK R7 without first migrating data to an alternative file system. The default on-disk file system block size is set to be the equivalent of the page size for these file systems, which means that the change in page size can render the file system inaccessible and can cause data corruption.

    Note, however, that Oracle has placed checks within the UEK R7 Arm RPM that prevent the installation of UEK R7 if a Btrfs file system is detected and the resulting change in block size could cause data to become inaccessible.

  • For an XFS file system, the default block size is 4 KB. XFS enables you to manually set the block size at file system creation time. If you have XFS file systems with a block size greater than 4 KB, you're required to migrate data before upgrading to UEK R7.

    Typically, a data migration plan might involve adding another storage device, formatting it with an unaffected file system or using XFS with the block size specified as 4 KB, and then moving the data onto the newly formatted device.

  • Users of the Oracle Linux 8 developer image installed on Raspberry Pi systems are necessarily affected because the image uses a Btrfs file system, by default. If you're using this image, and you intend to upgrade to UEK R7, you must migrate data to an alternative unaffected file system before trying to install UEK R7. For more information about using the Raspberry Pi hardware platform, see Install Oracle Linux on a Raspberry Pi.

  • Any existing swap partitions that were created on the Arm platform using an earlier UEK release, such as UEK R6, don't work after upgrading to UEK R7. The change to a 4 KB default page size on the aarch64 platform requires that any existing swap partitions on the system must be reinitialized with the new page size after booting the system with UEK R7. For further details, see Swap partitions created on Arm platform using an earlier UEK release don't work after upgrade to UEK R7.

For general information about working with file systems in Oracle Linux 8, see Oracle Linux 8: Managing Local File Systems.

Obtaining Packages for Installation

If you have a subscription to Oracle Unbreakable Linux support, you can obtain the packages for UEK R7 by registering the system with the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) and then subscribing it to any extra channels. See Subscribing to ULN Channels.

If the system isn't registered with ULN, you can obtain most of the required packages from the Oracle Linux yum server. See Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories.

When you have subscribed the system to the appropriate ULN channels or to the Oracle Linux yum server, you can proceed to upgrade the system to UEK R7. See Upgrading a System to UEK R7.

Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories

Packages for UEK R7 and any associated user space applications are available on the Oracle Linux yum server at https://yum.oracle.com/.

For Oracle Linux 8, the kernel images and all the associated user space packages for both the x86_64 and aarch64 platforms are made available by enabling the following repositories:

  • ol8_UEKR7

  • ol8_baseos_latest

For Oracle Linux 9, the kernel images and all the associated user space packages for both the x86_64 and aarch64 platforms are made available by enabling the following repositories:

  • ol9_UEKR7

  • ol9_baseos_latest

To enable access to repositories on the Oracle Linux yum server, use the dnf config-manager command and specify the appropriate repositories for the release that you're running.

For example, you would enable access to the Oracle Linux 8 repositories as follows: 

sudo dnf config-manager --enable ol8_baseos_latest ol8_UEKR7

Note:

You can only use the dnf config-manager to enable or disable repositories that already have a configuration file for the specified repository. Repository configurations are typically stored in the /etc/yum.repos.d file. The repository configurations that are required to install the UEK release on Oracle Linux 8 and Oracle Linux 9 are included in the oraclelinux-release-el8 and oraclelinux-release-el9 packages. Note that you might need to update the package to the latest version to obtain the correct yum repository configuration.

Subscribing to ULN Channels

For Oracle Linux 8, kernel image and user space packages are made available for the x86_64 platform in the following ULN channels:

  • ol8_x86_64_UEKR7

  • ol8_x86_64_baseos_latest

For Oracle Linux 8, kernel image and user space packages are made available for the aarch64 platform in the following ULN channels:

  • ol8_aarch64_UEKR7

  • ol8_aarch64_baseos_latest

For Oracle Linux 9, kernel image and user space packages are made available for the x86_64 platform in the following ULN channels:

  • ol9_x86_64_UEKR7

  • ol9_x86_64_baseos_latest

For Oracle Linux 9, kernel image and user space packages are made available for the aarch64 platform in the following ULN channels:

  • ol9_aarch64_UEKR7

  • ol9_aarch64_baseos_latest

The following instructions assume that you have already registered the system with ULN.

To subscribe a system to a ULN channel:

  1. Sign in to https://linux.oracle.com with a ULN username and password.

  2. On the Systems tab, in the list of registered machines, click the link that corresponds to the name of the system.

  3. On the System Details page, click Manage Subscriptions.

  4. On the System Summary page, from the list of available channels, select each of the required channels, then click the right arrow to move the selected channel to the list of subscribed channels.

  5. Click Save Subscriptions.

For more information about using ULN, see Oracle Linux: Managing Software on Oracle Linux.

Upgrading a System to UEK R7

The following instructions describe how to upgrade a system to UEK R7. For more details about the suggested migration paths for upgrading to UEK R7, see About Upgrading From a Previous Oracle Linux or UEK Release to UEK R7.

  1. Enable access to the appropriate ULN channels or yum repositories, as described in Subscribing to ULN Channels and Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories.

    Tip:

    Disable any other UEK channels or repositories that you might have previously configured as good practice.

  2. After enabling access to the appropriate channels or repositories, upgrade the system to UEK R7 by running the following commands: 

    sudo dnf install -y kernel-uek
sudo dnf update -y

  3. After the upgrade has completed, reboot the system.

    Ensure to select the UEK R7 kernel (version 5.15.0) if it's not the default boot kernel.

For questions regarding installing software or updating a system, see Oracle Linux: Managing Software on Oracle Linux.

Installing and Upgrading Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages on Oracle Linux

The following instructions describe how to install and upgrade Oracle-supported RDMA packages on Oracle Linux 8 and Oracle Linux 9.

Installing Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages on Oracle Linux 8

Note:

These instructions apply to the x86_64 platform.

The following instructions describe how to install Oracle-Supported RDMA on an Oracle Linux 8 system. These instructions include steps on how to remove other previously installed RDMA packages that could cause conflicts when installing the UEK R7U1 RDMA packages.

If the system is running Oracle Linux 9, see Installing Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages on Oracle Linux 9 for instructions.

  1. Subscribe the system to the appropriate RDMA ULN channel or yum repository.

    • If you're using the Oracle Linux yum server, enable the ol8_UEKR7_RDMA repository for Oracle Linux 8, for example: 

      sudo dnf config-manager --enable ol8_baseos_latest ol8_UEKR7 ol8_UEKR7_RDMA

    • If you're using ULN, subscribe to ol8_x86_64_UEKR7_RDMA channel.

    For further instructions, see Subscribing to ULN Channels and Enabling Access to Oracle Linux Yum Server Repositories.

  2. Remove any existing packages that are related to RDMA, for example: 

    sudo dnf remove 'ibacm*'
sudo dnf remove 'ibutils*'
sudo dnf remove 'infiniband-diags*'
sudo dnf remove 'libibacl*'
sudo dnf remove 'libibcm*'
sudo dnf remove 'libibmad*'
sudo dnf remove 'libibumad*'
sudo dnf remove 'libibverbs*'
sudo dnf remove 'librdmacm*'
sudo dnf remove 'mstflint*'
sudo dnf remove 'opensm*'
sudo dnf remove 'oracle-rdma-release'
sudo dnf remove 'oracle-rdma-tools'
sudo dnf remove 'perftest*'
sudo dnf remove 'qperf*'
sudo dnf remove 'rdma*'
sudo dnf remove 'rds-tools*'

  3. Clean the yum cached files from all the enabled repositories: 

    sudo dnf clean all

  4. Install the RDMA packages for UEK R7.

    • Use the following commands to install the core packages: 

      sudo dnf install rdma-core
sudo dnf install libibverbs-utils
sudo dnf install librdmacm-utils
sudo dnf install mstflint
sudo dnf install mlnx-tools
sudo dnf install rds-tools
      • If installing on a bare-metal system, install the infiniband-diags package:
        sudo dnf install infiniband-diags
      • If installing on a guest VM, install the infiniband-diags-guest package:
        sudo dnf install infiniband-diags-guest

    • (Optional) If you require the perftest package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install perftest

    • (Optional) If you require the qperf package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install qperf

    • (Optional) If you require the libpcap package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install libpcap

    • (Optional) If you require the ibacm package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install ibacm

    • (Optional) If you require the srp_daemon package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install srp_daemon

Each UEK release requires a different set of RDMA packages. If you change the kernel on the system to a UEK release that's earlier than UEK R7, remove the RDMA packages as instructed earlier before installing the correct packages for the new kernel.

Caution:

Downgrading UEK versions isn't advised, except for testing purposes.

Installing Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages on Oracle Linux 9

Note:

These instructions apply to the x86_64 platform.

The process of installing Oracle-supported RDMA packages on Oracle Linux 9 is simplified by using new user space packages, and a dedicated ULN channel and yum repository for RDMA-related packages.

If the system is running Oracle Linux 8, the process of installing Oracle-supported RDMA packages remains the same as it was in previous releases. For instructions, see Installing Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages on Oracle Linux 8.

The following instructions describe how to install RDMA release packages on an Oracle Linux 9 system:

  1. Ensure that you have subscribed to the ULN channel or have enabled the yum repository that contains the RDMA-related user space packages for Oracle Linux 9.

    • If you're installing packages from ULN, subscribe to the ol9_x86_64_RDMA channel.

    • If you're installing packages from the Oracle Linux yum server, enable the ol9_RDMA yum repository.

  2. Clean the yum cached files from all the enabled repositories by running the following command: 

    sudo dnf clean all

  3. Install the RDMA packages for UEK R7.

    • Use the following commands to install the core packages: 

      sudo dnf install rdma-core
sudo dnf install libibverbs-utils
sudo dnf install librdmacm-utils
sudo dnf install mstflint
sudo dnf install mlnx-tools
sudo dnf install rds-tools
      • If installing on a bare-metal system, install the infiniband-diags package:
        sudo dnf install infiniband-diags
      • If installing on a guest VM, install the infiniband-diags-guest package:
        sudo dnf install infiniband-diags-guest

    • (Optional) If you require the perftest package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install perftest

    • (Optional) If you require the qperf package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install qperf

    • (Optional) If you require the libpcap package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install libpcap

    • (Optional) If you require the ibacm package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install ibacm

    • (Optional) If you require the srp_daemon package, install the package by running: 

      sudo dnf install srp_daemon

Upgrading Oracle-Supported RDMA Packages on Oracle Linux 8 and Oracle Linux 9

You can upgrade the Oracle-supported RDMA packages on Oracle Linux 8 and Oracle Linux 9 by using the dnf update command.

If you're upgrading a system that has the oracle-rdma-release or oracle-rdma-release-guest package installed, if the package version is lower than version 0.18.1-1 and you intend to upgrade to version 0.18.1-1, or later, you must first manually remove the rdma-core-devel package. Remove this package by using the rpm -e --nodeps command, which removes the package outside of the standard yum or DNF package manager control and leaves any dependencies intact, for example: 

sudo /bin/rpm -e --nodeps rdma-core-devel
sudo dnf update
If the system you have upgraded has the oracle-rdma-release or oracle-rdma-release-guest package installed and if the package version is version 0.31.0-1, then you can remove it because that package no longer serves any purpose: 
sudo dnf remove oracle-rdma-release*