Woody kernel 2.4.18-bf2.4 update questions

[Duane Winner]

Could somebody please provide a simple breakdown of what I need to do
update my kernel?

I started installed Debian(Woody) with kernel 2.4.18-bf2.4 on some
machines few months ago. I was (and still am) new to Debian, and don't
understand all of it's nuances yet.

I saw the Debian Security Advisory on June 8, so now I want to install the
updated kernel.

First, I don't understand Debian's version numbering. The advisory tells
me if I have 2.4.18-bf2.4, then should install kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4.
Doesn't Debian jack up the version numbers when a new update comes out?
How do I tell if I've updated a system yet or not (other than writing down
a note to myself????)

Also, I tried this on a test machine by just typing: #apt-get install
kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4
It then proceeded to give me a bunch of warnings about modules. On this
particular test machine, I never compiled any modules, so threw caution
into the wind and just let it rip. It seemed to work ok, and allegedly
took care of my boot loader and then I rebooted and I was still alive when
all was done.

So my main questions are:

1) How do I really tell if I upgraded my kernel or not? If I do a uname
-r, it tells me I'm running 2.4.18-bf2.4. Well, that's what uname told me
before I did this too, so how do I tell?

2) I'm installing kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4 to "upgrade" the kernel, but
there was no kernel-image package on my system in the first place, so how
is package management really handling the kernel?

3) On some systems I have development tools and kernel headers installed
because I needed to compile an e100 module or whatnot. Will I have to
recompile my modules again? This is what I gather from all the big
warnings when installing kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4. But what about updated
kernel-headers? I don't see any updated kernel-headers around to match my
updated kernel. Will this work?

Are there any other considerations that I need to be aware of, or am I
basically doing this correctly and worrying too much?

Thanks for any input.

[Duane Winner]

[Kevin McKinley]

There was no kernel-image package on your system because a kernel and its
modules are part of the basic system. (I believe that will change for Sarge,
and that will be a good thing.)

Let's step through a way to find the answer to some of your questions:

1. Go to www.debian.org, in the left sidebar click on "Packages", then on
"Search package directories". That should lead you here:

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_packages

2. Enter "kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4" and click "Search". That should get you
this:

http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4&searchon=names&subword=1&version=stable&release=all

3. Click on the link, which leads here:

http://packages.debian.org/stable/base/kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4.html

Note the red banner "security". This is a security upgrade.

4. Below the "Go to Download Page" button, click on "developer information
for kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4", which leads here:

http://packages.qa.debian.org/k/kernel-image-2.4.18-i386bf.html

Note that this package is the sixth version of kernel-image-2.4.18-bf2.4,
and it was released on 07 June 2003 (the day before the security advisory).

My conclusions:

A. Debian does upgrade binary kernel packages to fix security problems.
B. The version numbers are "jacked up". The current version is the sixth
version.
C. The Security Advisory was issued once the necessary upgrade packages were
in place.
D. If you installed version six of this kernel-image you have the latest
version available.

To see if which version of a package you have, do "dpkg -l <packagename>":

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err:
uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-=========-============================================
ii kernel-image-2 2.0 Linux kernel binary image for version 2.4.20

(I build my own kernels, but the idea is still the same.) Compare the
version number with the version number you see in #4 above to see if you
have the latest version. If you don't an upgrade may be in order.

For a description of debian kernel image names, read this section and the
two that follow:

http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/system/kernel-pkg.html#APPEND-KERNEL-PKG

This will answer your question about the warnings about modules.

(Read the whole article to find out how to build your own kernels.)

The kernel-headers package was updated on the same day as the kernel-image,
so you should upgrade it as well.

OTOH, you could just step through the tutorial (using kernel-source-2.4.20
instead), configure your kernel to build the e100 package you need and
forget about kernel headers. :)

Kevin

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