The default Linux Kernel version of Azure Linux VM is 3.1x for CentOS 7, and 4.1x for CentOS 8.
You can check Linux Kernel version by:
$ uname -r
There are many benefits to upgrade the Linux Kernel, including performance, functionality and security improvement.
For example, mount option “nconnect" is only available on Linux Kernel 5.3 and above. It can spread your server’s networking connections to multiple network interface cards (NICs) to increase total number of TCP connections, and therefore to improve overall IOPS and throughput performance. Which will especially helpful when running HPC and EDA applications.
Performance best practice- running EDA workloads on Azure NetApp Files (microsoft.com)
Below the steps to upgrade the Linux Kernel on CentOS 7:
# Update repository
sudo yum -y update
# Enable the ELRepo Repository
sudo rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-2.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
# Install the ELRepo repository。
sudo rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
sudo yum -y --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-ml
# Reboot the machine
sudo reboot
Below the steps to upgrade the Linux Kernel on CentOS 8:
# Update repository
sudo yum -y update
# Enable the ELRepo Repository
sudo dnf -y install https://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-8.el8.elrepo.noarch.rpm
# Install the ELRepo repository。
sudo rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
sudo dnf -y --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-ml kernel-ml-devel kernel-ml-headers --allowerasing --skip-broken --nobest
# Reboot the machine
sudo reboot
After the reboot, you can check version again:
$ uname -r
5.12.11-1.el8.elrepo.x86_64
Raymond's Tech Notes 