AL2023 builds only install kernel 6.1

[brian-bl]

Issue: Because the rpm names for the 6.18 kernel are "kernel6.18" instead of just "kernel", AL2023 builds will always create AMIs that boot into the 6.1 kernel. Updating the manifest to only have kernel6.18 will actually end up installing both, I think because of line 35 in Ospackages.sh in the amigen9 project. Changing that line to replace kernel with kernel6.18 causes a failure during PostBuild.sh at line 355. Replacing kernel name there with kernel6.18 will eventually let the build succeed and it will boot into 6.18.

Desired result: AL2023 builds with kernel 6.18 should either be the default, or there should be some way to specify the kernel version in the packer template for AL2023 builds.

[lorengordon]

Have you tried using the AL2023 AMI that starts with the kernel6.18 version, as the filter input for aws_source_ami_filter_al2023_hvm? Our builds set that like so, {name = "al2023-ami-minimal-2023.*-kernel-6.1-x86_64", owners = ["amazon"]}, to ensure we always build the 6.1 kernel intentionally...

[lorengordon]

For the purposes of this project, we need to stick with the 6.1 kernel for validated FIPS support. Once 6.12 or 6.18 are validated, we would be able to consider updating.

• https://aws.amazon.com/linux/amazon-linux-2023/faqs/#al2023-fips-faq--3m3tsn

[brian-bl]

I did try changing the source filter, and I think what happens there is that it will boot 6.18 to do the build, but it will still install 6.1 in the chroot volume.

[lorengordon]

Interesting. AL2023 packages are installed from a manifest file. So I don't think line 35 in OSpackages.sh is in play.

• https://github.com/plus3it/spel/blob/master/spel/minimal-linux.pkr.hcl#L591-L595
• https://github.com/plus3it/amigen9/blob/main/install-manifests/al2023-minimal.txt

Perhaps grabbing the rpm manifest from AL2023 with the 6.18 kernel, dnf repoquery --installed --qf '%{name}', and sending in your own manifest file would bring up an instance with the 6.18 kernel? Though possibly we would need to adjust the kernel query in PostBuild.sh....