[Yum] Kernel Updates

[seth vidal]

> Some days ago we had some discussion, when I proposed that handling of
> "special cases", like kernel install/upgrades, should better not be
> done via Yum "built-in" functions, but via external scripts and/or
> external Python modules/functions (currently not possible).  Some
> predefined scripts/functions could then be included with Yum, or
> admins can write their own handler.  This would also cover your request.

Just to be clear the following is a description of what yum does:

kernels are kept as a special case. They are always installed, they are
never updated. This is done so that older kernels are not replaced by
the newer kernels.

After the transaction is complete yum looks through the list of packages
and checks to see if a kernel was in the list. If so, then it passes the
lists of kernels to a second function which then sets one of the kernels
to be the default boot kernel.

This is, currently, handled internally to yum in python. I use the same
routines that up2date uses to update kernels. I did this so the updating
behavior would be the most consistent to red hat's behavior.

-sv