New default Linux Miniserver kernel

Here in OPs we're very keen to ensure that your Miniservers are as stable as possible; apart from to install certain updates, rebooting shouldn't be necessary. To this end, we keep kernel changes to a minimum, preferring you to have access to a proven stable build.

With the recent push towards containerised deployment tools such as Docker, we've seen more customers requiring a newer kernel which is capable of handling the technologies these tools use.

As of today, after extensive internal testing we've made our new kernel available to all Linux Miniservers. In keeping with our stance on stability, we've based the new kernel on the 3.12 branch, with the first release being 3.12.36.

What does this mean for you?

Day-to-day usage of your Miniserver will be no different, everything you have installed will be unaffected. If you wish to take advantage of new technologies such as Docker, you'll now be able to - please follow the simple steps below.

How to get the new kernel

As 3.12.36 is now default across all Miniserver hosts, it's as simple as rebooting using the control panel. The three steps below detail how to check your current kernel, how to reboot and then how to check which kernel you're now using.

Firstly, check your current kernel version with uname -r.

For the majority of Miniservers, you will see 3.4.91-x1-64 returned - this was our previous default kernel.

If your server has cPanel installed, the version is also available via WHM. Once logged in, navigate to Server Status > Server Information and scroll down to the System Information section.

Your current kernel version follows the server hostname:

Linux myserver.miniserver.com 3.4.91-x1-64

To enable the new kernel for your Miniserver, you'll need to reboot your server from the Memset control panel; how to carry this out is detailed here under the Manual Reboots section.

Please note that rebooting via SSH or WHM isn't sufficient as it won't pull in the new kernel, it must be done using Memset's control panel reboot method.

Once the Miniserver has rebooted, access the server via SSH and issue a further uname -r; this should now return 3.12.36-x1-64. If this is the case then no further action is required.

In the unlikely event that the kernel hasn't changed after following the steps above, please submit a ticket to our Support team.