RHEL 6.5 to 6.4 downgrade error

Question

I was following a RHEL solution about the downgrade, which went as follows:

Check version and releases
search for the available packages

yum list kernel-2.6.32-358*
Install the rhel 6.4 kernel package yum install kernel-2.6.32-358.23.2.el6 .... Complete !
Reboot system
Clean up

yum clean metadata yum clean all
Now downgrade

yum -y downgrade redhat-release
I get the following error Downloading Packages: https://cdn.redhat.com/content/dist/rhel/server/6/6Server/x86_64/os/Packages/redhat-release-server-6Server-6.4.0.4.el6.x86_64.rpm: [Errno 14] PYCURL ERROR 22 - "The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found" Trying other mirror.

The current 6.5 is clean install not upgrade and I was not able to find a way to configure 6.4 repositories ... Also the changes in any of the grub files : /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.conf /etc/grub.conf /etc/grub.conf.rpmsave

and reboot according to this instruction do to cause the server to boot into 6.4 's kernel ... and it did not work neither ...

Search for loading of the kernel without reboot , yet it seemed too risky ... This hack gave just before the latest command EFI related errors , so did not apply it ( do not want to go to the data center ... yet ... )

So after some 5 hours of googling the following questions arose: When one buys RHEL 6.5 subscriptions is it the case that downgrade is not even possible or Is it possible, but first RHEL 6.4 repos must be configured ( how ?! Should RH Customer Support be contactd ?! )

and am I completely lost about some fundamentally basic link missing to resolve this issue ?!

Thanks in advance !!!

Is there something specifically in EL6.5 that's incompatible with your environment? — ewwhite, May 25 '14 at 22:18
The software vendor of the product I am installing on RHEL does support max RHEL 6.4 — Yordan Georgiev, May 25 '14 at 22:46
There are very few cases where software won't work on minor revision upgrades in RHEL. I'd push back with the vendor. — ewwhite, May 25 '14 at 22:55
I did with Oracle... Find out what the incompatibility is, and work with it. You can't keep EL6.4 forever. — ewwhite, May 25 '14 at 22:59
You can't even keep 6.4 _today_ sometimes: the OpenSSL is vulnerable to Heartbleed, for instance, and most third party software requires you to update to 6.5. You _can_ push IBM on this, and you _should_ push them _very hard_. — Michael Hampton, May 26 '14 at 12:00

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered May 25 '14 at 21:54

4

Running anything other than the latest release of your major version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not supported unless you have also purchased an Extended Update Support subscription for the server.

You can set your preferred release level using the subscription-manager tool. There is no supported way of doing this if you registered with the legacy RHN.

[root#server ~]# subscription-manager release --set=6.4
[root#server ~]# yum distro-sync

answered May 25 '14 at 21:54

Michael Hampton

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Thans for the fast answer ... : subscription-manager release --set=6.4 'exceptions.ValueError' object has no attribute 'msg' – Yordan Georgiev May 25 '14 at 22:09
Something strange is going on with your installation. I would suggest you contact Red Hat. – Michael Hampton May 25 '14 at 22:10
Thanks again ;o) I just re-run the commands and this time with success !!! subscription-manager release --set=6.4 Release set to: 6.4 root@datnode3 [Mon May 26 01:13:45] [~] $ yum distro-sync .... Installed: redhat-release-server.x86_64 0:6Server-6.4.0.4.el6 Complete! cat /etc/redhat-release Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago) – Yordan Georgiev May 25 '14 at 22:16
... and prevent any future undesired upgrades : grep 'exclude=kernel*' /etc/yum.conf exclude=kernel* – Yordan Georgiev May 26 '14 at 04:55
1

@yordangeorgiev Blacklisting kernel upgrades that way is also a bad practice. You will have undesired effects down the road. – ewwhite May 26 '14 at 13:55

RHEL 6.5 to 6.4 downgrade error

1 Answers1