Bug 1315593

Summary:	[RFE] grub.conf has the last installed kernel as default boot kernel instead of the latest installed version as default
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6	Reporter:	Seiji Nishikawa <snishika>
Component:	grubby	Assignee:	Peter Jones <pjones>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Release Test Team <release-test-team>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	6.6	CC:	cww
Target Milestone:	rc	Keywords:	FutureFeature
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Enhancement
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2016-07-25 18:30:06 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Bug Depends On:
Bug Blocks:	1269194

Description Seiji Nishikawa 2016-03-08 07:53:19 UTC

Description of problem:

grub.conf has the last installed kernel as a default boot kernel instead of the latest installed version of kernel as default.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

kernel-2.6.32-504.3.3.el6.x86_64
grub-0.97-83.el6.x86_64
grubby-7.0.15-5.el6.x86_64

How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Install the latest kernel e.g. kernel-2.6.32-573.el6.

2. Next install the older kernel than the one installed in step 1 e.g. kernel-2.6.32-431.el6.

3. The older kernel (in this example 2.6.32-431.el6) installed in step 2 is set as a default boot kernel in grub.conf instead of the latest version of installed kernel (in this example 2.6.32-573.el6).

Actual results:

The last installed kernel will always be a default boot kernel in grub.conf instead of the latest installed version of kernel. If an older kernel is getting installed after the newer version of kernel, we will have to manually update grub.conf to use the newer version of kernel.

Expected results:

We should like to have some option/way being introduced to update grub.conf to use latest version of kernel as the default boot kernel instead of last installed kernel.

Additional info:

Customer uses HP server automation tool which is used in the IT infrastructures to do the automation of the operations that are done at server OS level including kernel installation, which brings multiple versions of kernels installed at the same time; resulting in older kernel being set as a default boot kernel in grub.conf at times. We sould like to provide our customer with some good option/way to update grub.conf to always use the latest installed version of kernel as a default boot kernel.

Comment 2 David Kaspar // Dee'Kej 2016-03-08 15:20:22 UTC

Hello Seiji,

I personally see the current behaviour as expected and I wouldn't definitely change the default behaviour of this. Most likely scenario is that end-user will install the older kernel because the latest/newer one isn't stable. In that case it desirable to boot into the older kernel, which should be in most cases more stable.

However, if the customer requires such a behaviour, introducing a new option for this is IMHO a good way to do it.

Nevertheless, grub is working correctly in this case (it does what it's suppose to do, by following instructions in grub.conf). Therefore, I'm switching this to grubby package, which is a configuration tool for grub.

Comment 3 Chris Williams 2016-07-25 18:30:06 UTC

When Red Hat shipped 6.8 on May 10, 2016 RHEL 6 entered Production Phase 2. 
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata#Production_2_Phase
That means only "Critical and Important Security errata advisories (RHSAs) and Urgent Priority Bug Fix errata advisories (RHBAs) may be released"
That also means no new RFEs so this BZ is being closed WONTFIX.