Updating the Kernel - Best practice?

[santrix]

Hi,

>uname -r
gives
2.6.18-92.1.18.el5

>yum list kernel
gives
kernel.i686 2.6.18-92.el5 installed
kernel.i686 2.6.18-92.1.18.el5 installed
Available Packages
kernel.i686 2.6.18-164.11.1.el5 updates

I take it that
>yum update kernel

will just update 2.6.18 to the latest 164 revision?

Is this safe to do? Is it necessary?

I assume there is no way to upgrade the kernel to a later version (2.6.33 for example) without rebuilding the box?

Where can I find the best source of info on the vulnerabilities to various kernel versions, so i can stop asking lame questions?

Thanks

Steve

[hicom]

Just do:

yum upgrade kernel or yum upgrade kernel-PAE or yum upgrade kernel-SMP

depending on what type of kernel you have installed on the system.

Also, just found out an issue on CentOS 5.4 with ext3 file system. If you have a device that you mount/unmount every night. The system will attempt to fsck that partition upon reboot!! This may cause your system to take a long long time to come back up.