Bug 1657287

Summary:	cannot autoremove unused kernel package when kernel-modules is installed
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Maciek Borzecki <maciek.borzecki>
Component:	dnf	Assignee:	Jaroslav Mracek <jmracek>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	29	CC:	dmach, mblaha, mhatina, packaging-team-maint, rpm-software-management, vmukhame
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Last Closed:	2018-12-10 13:24:01 UTC	Type:	Bug
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Maciek Borzecki 2018-12-07 15:24:19 UTC

Description of problem:
When the system image had kernel-modules installed, after upgrading to the new kernel, dnf autoremove fails to clean up the old kernel and modules, raising an error:

[guest@localhost ~]$ sudo dnf autoremove -y
Last metadata expiration check: 0:10:27 ago on Fri 07 Dec 2018 03:07:24 PM UTC.
Error: 
 Problem: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: kernel-core

This does not happen if kernel-modules was not installed before.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
dnf-4.0.9-1.fc29.noarch
dnf-data-4.0.9-1.fc29.noarch
dnf-plugins-core-4.0.2-1.fc29.noarch
dnf-yum-4.0.9-1.fc29.noarch
kernel-core-4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64
kernel-core-4.19.6-300.fc29.x86_64
kernel-modules-4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64
kernel-modules-4.19.6-300.fc29.x86_64
libdnf-0.22.3-1.fc29.x86_64
libsolv-0.7.1-2.fc29.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Grab Fedora-Cloud-Base-29-1.2.x86_64 image
2. uname -r gives  4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64
3. dnf install kernel-modules-4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64 (matching running kernel)
4. dnf upgrade kernel\* -y
5. reboot
6. uname -r gives 4.19.6-300.fc29.x86_64
6. dnf autoremove -y, gives:
 Problem: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: kernel-core
7. dnf remove kernel-modules-4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64 kernel-core-4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64 works

Actual results:


Expected results:
the unused kernel would be autoremoved

Comment 1 Jaroslav Mracek 2018-12-10 13:24:01 UTC

Kernel is installonly package and therefore it is not automatically removed. The number of kept installonly packages can be set in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf with key installonly_limit.

If I have installonly_limit=3 it means that 3 kernel packages will be kept on the system. Minimal number is 2 and it is for good reason.

Hope that it helps.

Comment 2 Maciek Borzecki 2018-12-10 16:06:33 UTC

I think there's still something fishy:

[guest@localhost ~]$ sudo dnf --setopt installonly_limit=1 autoremove 
Last metadata expiration check: 0:07:38 ago on Mon 10 Dec 2018 03:55:06 PM UTC.
Error: 
 Problem: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: kernel-core

Any suggestions how to tell dnf autoremove to clean up unused kernel versions? Removing them manually via dnf remove works.