Update: Mosso is now known as The Rackspace Cloud.
Previously on Borkfomb, I mentioned lengthy support times with Mosso. With my latest ticket, I expected to wait some time before receiving a response. It wasn’t a particularly pressing matter, so I emailed support instead of using live chat or calling. After initially receiving an unhelpful response and at length growing slightly impatient, I decided to, for the first time, call Mosso’s support line. I would end up being pleasantly surprised.
First, some background info.
On the VPSs Mosso and Slicehost provide via Xen, it is difficult (dare I say, impossible?) for customers to determine the running kernel version themselves. Unlike a regular Linux system, there are no kernel packages installed, and dmesg contains only the host server’s kernel version.
As is the case with Slicehost, which I assume applies also to Mosso, kernel updates are not available until they’ve been thoroughly tested. Ubuntu released the 2.6.24-23.52 kernel only last month, I was unsure if Mosso had adopted this version yet, or was still using 2.6.24-23.48.
And so I contacted support.
Howdy,
I’m wondering if you could tell me which kernel is running on my cloud
server. I know 2.6.24-23.52 was released for
Ubuntu 8.04 last month, but am unsure if Mosso has released it for use
yet. If it’s running the previous version, 2.6.24-23.48, that’s fine.
I don’t wish to upgrade, I’m simply curious.
You can find out what kernel is being run on your Cloud Server by
executing the following command:uname -r
Thanks for the reply!
Unfortunately uname -r doesn’t return the trailing point-version of
the running kernel. For example, on my server it returns only the
“2.6.24-23″ part, so I cannot tell if it’s running 2.6.24-23.48 or
2.6.24-23.52.
Ordinarily, I’d check the package manager for the installed kernel or
look in dmesg. Due to the Xen virtualization however, my server’s OS
itself has no kernel packages installed, and dmesg returns what seems
to be the host server’s kernel version, 2.6.24-4.6.Again, this isn’t a pressing issue… I would simply like to find out
the precise kernel version so I know which kernel vulnerabilities
remain unpatched on my server, should it not be running the latest
version.
So after waiting over 12 hours for a response, I decided to call Mosso. Not because I needed to know the answer immediately, but because having to wait so long for such a simple support issue gave me an excuse to call, I thought.
I was soon connected to a technician named Joe. It just so happens he was working on my ticket when I called. Awesome. What our conversation entailed I’m unable to repeat here with any degree of accuracy… suffice to say, it was a couple of Linux geeks talking a mile a minute about the customer’s ability to determine the kernel version of a Xen guest instance, and our various attempts to find a method to do so.
It turns out the delay in a response to my ticket was due to Joe’s attempt to find a solution and respond with something other than, “Sorry, only Mosso can see the kernel version of a given cloud server.” I appreciate his dedication.
As Mosso’s cloud server service was released less than a two months ago, I suppose every support technician can’t be an expert on the technology… so I won’t fret over the initially unhelpful response received. In the end, I obtained the information I desired, and formed a much more positive opinion of Mosso’s technical support.
