How do you go about getting rid of old kernels automatically in Almalinux? I’ve been using package-cleanup with –oldkernels and –count set, but that doesn’t work on Alma. The man-page for package-cleanup says “A DNF-based shim imitating the original YUM-based package-cleanup utility.”, where –oldkernels isn’t listed as an option anymore…
To remove all but the latest two of every “installonly”-type package:
dnf remove $(dnf repoquery --installonly --latest-limit=-2 -q)
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Checking installed packages:
$ sudo dnf repoquery --installonly
Failed to set locale, defaulting to C.UTF-8
Failed loading plugin "product-id": No module named 'subscription_manager.productid'
Failed loading plugin "subscription-manager": cannot import name 'injection'
Failed loading plugin "upload-profile": cannot import name 'packageprofilelib'
kernel-0:4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64
kernel-0:4.18.0-348.2.1.el8_5.x86_64
kernel-0:4.18.0-348.el8.x86_64
kernel-core-0:4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64
kernel-core-0:4.18.0-348.2.1.el8_5.x86_64
kernel-core-0:4.18.0-348.el8.x86_64
kernel-modules-0:4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64
kernel-modules-0:4.18.0-348.2.1.el8_5.x86_64
Running the solution:
$ sudo dnf remove $(dnf repoquery --installonly --latest-limit=-2 -q)
Failed to set locale, defaulting to C.UTF-8
Failed loading plugin "product-id": No module named 'subscription_manager.productid'
Failed loading plugin "subscription-manager": cannot import name 'injection'
Failed loading plugin "upload-profile": cannot import name 'packageprofilelib'
Failed to set locale, defaulting to C.UTF-8
Failed loading plugin "product-id": No module named 'subscription_manager.productid'
Failed loading plugin "subscription-manager": cannot import name 'injection'
Failed loading plugin "upload-profile": cannot import name 'packageprofilelib'
Dependencies resolved.
==========================================================================================================
Package Architecture Version Repository Size
==========================================================================================================
Removing:
kernel x86_64 4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4 @baseos 0
kernel-core x86_64 4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4 @baseos 67 M
kernel-modules x86_64 4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4 @baseos 22 M
Transaction Summary
==========================================================================================================
Remove 3 Packages
Freed space: 88 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
Preparing : 1/1
Erasing : kernel-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 1/3
Running scriptlet: kernel-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 1/3
Erasing : kernel-modules-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 2/3
Running scriptlet: kernel-modules-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 2/3
Running scriptlet: kernel-core-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 3/3
Erasing : kernel-core-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 3/3
Running scriptlet: kernel-core-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 3/3
Verifying : kernel-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 1/3
Verifying : kernel-core-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 2/3
Verifying : kernel-modules-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 3/3
Removed:
kernel-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64 kernel-core-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64
kernel-modules-4.18.0-305.25.1.el8_4.x86_64
Complete!
Worked!
Hm, be careful: repoquery does query available packages and these may not be installed. What if the latest 2 kernels are not installed? You could end up trying to remove all installed kernels?
another way: in /etc/yum.conf
installonly_limit=2
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I suppose changing the yum.conf is the easier solution. However, the solution proposed by @jlehtone contains the –installonly switch, so it would only delete installed kernels, right?
Normal package replaces earlier version on install.
Install_only packages, like kernel, do not replace; you can have multiple versions installed at same time.
The repoquery returns a list of package-names.
True, it does not check what is installed. Must refine that somehow.
Dnf remove xxx does uninstall xxx only if it is installed.
Is there still protection for currently running kernel?
no.
here is a description from yum.conf(5)
installonlypkgs
list
List of provide names of packages that should only ever be
installed, never upgraded. Kernels in particular fall into this
category. These packages are never removed by dnf autoremove
even if they were installed as dependencies (see
clean_requirements_on_remove for auto removal details). This
option append the list values to the default installonlypkgs
list used by DNF. The number of kept package versions is regu-
lated by installonly_limit.
the --installonly option restricts to installonlypkgs
Ops. In that case, I’ll use installonly_limit=2 in the yum config-file.
Adding ‘–installed’ seems to limit the search suitably:
dnf repoquery --installed --installonly --latest-limit=-2 -q
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It seems that kernel-core package is protected - see protect_running_kernel in yum.conf - but not kernel or kernel-modules packages.
cool.
In the meantime I found
dnf [options] remove --oldinstallonly
this looked promising at first sight, but it doesn’t honor installonly_limit from yum.conf.