Newer kernel available - Rebooting did not activate the new expected kernel

Hello,

I had my vps crash because the bootloader was corrupted. After a bare-metal restore and update/upgrade, because I use Debian needrestart I got the Following:

“Newer kernel available
The currently running kernel version is 3.2.0-4-amd64 which is not the expected kernel version 3.16.0-4-amd64.
Restarting the system to load the new kernel will not be handled automatically, so you should consider rebooting.”

I rebooted, ran needrestart and got the same message. Checked the kernel, Ran uname -r = 3.2.0-4-amd64

I checked google and found stuff like “You can use the kernel from jessie-backports.” I also found warnings that doing this could cause the bootloader not to function. (which I don’t want to go through again) Also from Debian ‘apt-cache search linux-image’ and ‘apt-get install linux-image-flavour’ with warnings: Make sure you read everything it tells you during the installation, especially about initrd image.

I don’t know why rebooting did not activate the new expected kernel. I’m afraid to do any of the above without some professional advice. Running Debian 8.7

Any help as to what I should do would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

Thanks for that info.

I read the doc and it helped solve the problem, though it pertains to GRUB v2.

I don't have /etc/default/grub file." because for watever reason my vps is running GRUB v1 (occording to Debian, Squeeze and later should be using v2)

From my google search of grub: GRUB1 config file is /boot/grub/menu.lst and in that file it is calling for 3.2.0-4-amd64 in the following lines:
title vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64 root=LABEL=root ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-4-amd64

I changed the 3 instances of: 3.2.0-4-amd64 to: 3.16.0-4-amd64, did a reboot and the "Newer kernel available" error is gone.

I'll look into installing Grub2 now.
Thanks for your help.