Update kernel version of RHEL 5 which has Oracle 10g RAC installed

My client was facing the problem of limited utilisation of memory i.e. max. 2GB, while they had 16GB actual, the root cause was that the Redhat linux 5.1 was using the kernel version 2.6.18.128 which has maximum 3GB of memory (RAM) support, the way to fix this issue was to update the existing kernel version with the 2.6.18.128PAE kernel, but mean time Oracle 10g Real application cluster was installed at this machine which mean it was not just the simple update of kernel version but also it should maintain the RAC and keep it up and running, below are the steps to do, to upgrade the kernel while Oracle RAC should keep running after kernel update.

1) ASM and Oracle cluster file system should have the version compatible to as that of new kernel version i.e. some thing similar to, asmlib-2.6.18.128PAE.****.rpm and ocfs-2.6.18.128PAE.rpm
2) Installed the abve mentioned RPMs while system is running at old kernel level.
3) Install the new kernel version kernel-2.6.18.128PAE, while system is running at old kernel.
4) Reboot the machine with new PAE kernel.
5) Uninstall the RDAC library for old kernel version and install fresh RDAC specific to new PAE kenel version.
6) Reboot the machine.
7) All CRS services will be up and running.



Cheers,

Farrukh Salman,
Oracle Certified Professional 10g/11g,
Oracle Database Administrator,
eOman Portal Project, ITA, Muscat,Oman.