After the last reboot on past sunday, I noticed the kernel of my VPS has been "promoted" from the version 3.0.4 to the 3.2.1. My VPS is configured to use the "Latest 3.0 kernel".
This morning the control panel propose the version 3.0.18 instead of the 3.2.1 as the "latest 3.0 kernel".

Which kernel version is safe to use? Which is the reason for these jumps in the kernel assignment as "latest 3.0" version?

Thank you

When youre linode is configured for "latest 3.0 kernel", it will automatically use the kernel marked at "latest" by Linode, after much testing, but it only takes effect on reboots. The version it shows as "latest" should be the tested and stable version.

If your reboot ended up with a newer kernel, and you are sure you didn't change it by mistake, the likeliest story is they pushed out a kernel update, then rolled it back when some unforseen problem arose. It happens sometimes. You may not have rebooted after previous updates (one of my 'nodes is still on a 2.6 kernel).

You can always change it and reboot, should be no problem if you are running now. If you're not sure, you can always open a support ticket, which they answer within minutes!

There were some issues with 3.2.1 causing system instability so 3.0.18 was set to the 'Latest' stable kernel.

Shouldn't 3.2.1 be labeled "latest 3.2 kernel"? Or maybe just "latest stable kernel", since the version number goes up so quickly these days.

(On a not-so-related note, Firefox just told me it's ready to upgrade to version 10. Wow, already? Zimbabwe should be jealous of our hyper-inflation rate.)

A more accurate description would be "Latest 3.x"; the 2.6.39 -> 3.0 roll dropped a digit from the version. So, in effect, instead of 2.6.40, 2.6.41, 2.6.42, ..., we get 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, ....

The 3.0.x kernels are security/bug fixes atop the existing 3.0 kernel, so 3.0.8 would be 2.6.40.8 under the old numbering system. -rt

Thank you all. Tonight I rebooted my node and now it's running with the 3.0.18 stable kernel version.

Probably I have been unlucky rebooting my node in the meantime, between the 3.2.1 "promotion" and its stability check...

Next time I'll check the kernel version before rebooting

Thanks