Linode Ubuntu 12.04 image -- strange kernel

We roll our own kernels that your Linode uses to boot, and it exists outside of your filesystem.

If you want the Ubuntu-supplied Linux kernel and AppArmor your best bet would be to install their kernel and use pv_grub.

This has not been updated / tested with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but should mostly apply:

• http://library.linode.com/linode-platfo … grub-howto">http://library.linode.com/linode-platform/custom-instances/pv-grub-howto

-Tim

Looks like the latest unstable kernel is 3.2.1-linode40… Any word on when something newer than 3.0.x will be stable?

Hmm. Do these unstable kernels include AppArmor, or if I want AppArmor is custom kernel the necessary way to go?

(I ask because AppArmor has worked in stock Ubuntu for ages, and is not new.)

@James Bellinger:

Hmm. Do these unstable kernels include AppArmor, or if I want AppArmor is custom kernel the necessary way to go?

(I ask because AppArmor has worked in stock Ubuntu for ages, and is not new.)

We don't enable things like SELinux/AppArmor/Grsecurity in our kernels. If you need to use them, a custom kernel is the way to go.

-Tim

I see. Well, thank you for your time.

@Guspaz:

Looks like the latest unstable kernel is 3.2.1-linode40… Any word on when something newer than 3.0.x will be stable?

Last I knew, the reason for nothing newer is answered by the first part of your quote, unstable. There are some issues with newer kernels that staff was still trying to trace down

Well, I tried the PV-GRUB procedure for Ubuntu 11.04 with 12.04, and it worked fine.

I wonder how much more memory a true Ubuntu image would use?

I haven't seen any significant difference between linux-virtual and the Linode kernel, to be honest. The kernel's not the greatest contributor of RAM usage on most servers.

@James Bellinger:

I haven't seen any significant difference between linux-virtual and the Linode kernel, to be honest. The kernel's not the greatest contributor of RAM usage on most servers.

Exception: when you load the ZFS kernel module, then the kernel uses a rather large amount of RAM ;)

I also tried the pv grub option to get a stock ubuntu kernel running on Ubuntu 12.04. The kernel boots fine but my filesystem remains read only however.

I tried changing the mount options in /etc/fstab (remove the line remount-ro as per http://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?t=8376 but to no avail).

I've also openend a support ticket but thought i might get some extra feedback here.

Add rootflags=nobarrier to the kernel options in /boot/grub/menu.lst. You may also need to add nobarrier as an option to each of your ext3/ext4 filesystems in /etc/fstab. Barriers are enabled for ext3 as of kernel 3.1, but they don't seem to play well with Xen.