Debug kernels can't be removed properly by dnf remove command

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1

Hello,

I had four kernels installed: 6.17.8, 6.17.8+debug, 6.17.7, 6.17.8+debug and I wanted to remove the 6.17.8+debug, 6.17.7, 6.17.8+debug three kernels by one dnf remove command. This command had ran without any error but all the debug kernel are not properly removed. I still see them in the boot menu and also in the /boot directory:

$ sudo dnf history info 181
Transaction ID : 181
Begin time     : 2025-11-19 08:54:19
Begin rpmdb    : abc4558af7a81ef5168cde1d42fd3e5129f4dff3223bb1023a23f2eb448f6223
End time       : 2025-11-19 08:54:30
End rpmdb      : cb848b0ff7fc0fac06ed98e63caa87f49a6e0845bfd12a3736acec42a100a22b
User           : 1000 Rostislav Krasny <rosti>
Status         : Ok
Releasever     : 43
Description    : dnf remove kernel-core-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64 kernel-debug-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64 kernel-debug-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64
Comment        : 
Packages altered:
  Action Package                                       Reason     Repository
  Remove kernel-0:6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64               Dependency @System
  Remove kernel-core-0:6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64          User       @System
  Remove kernel-debug-0:6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64         User       @System
  Remove kernel-debug-0:6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64         User       @System
  Remove kernel-debug-modules-0:6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64 Clean      @System
  Remove kernel-debug-modules-0:6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64 Clean      @System
  Remove kernel-modules-0:6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64       Dependency @System
  Remove kernel-modules-core-0:6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64  Dependency @System

$ ls -la /boot
total 607632
dr-xr-xr-x. 6 root root      4096 Nov 19 10:54 .
dr-xr-xr-x. 1 root root       156 Nov 19 10:49 ..
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    294058 Nov  2 02:00 config-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    292971 Nov 13 02:00 config-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    294091 Nov 13 02:00 config-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug
drwx------. 3 root root      4096 Jan  1  1970 efi
drwx------. 3 root root      4096 Nov 19 10:58 grub2
-rw-------. 1 root root 267558933 Nov 14 17:33 initramfs-0-rescue-5b87e086273247cea88ba4202662b540.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  54306085 Nov 16 17:09 initramfs-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  54309343 Nov 19 10:45 initramfs-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  48614720 Nov 19 10:46 initramfs-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  54893568 Nov 19 10:50 initramfs-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64kdump.img
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root      4096 Jul 15 13:51 loader
drwx------. 2 root root     16384 Jul 15 13:48 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root        52 Nov 16 17:09 symvers-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug.xz -> /lib/modules/6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug/symvers.xz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root        52 Nov 19 10:43 symvers-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug.xz -> /lib/modules/6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug/symvers.xz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root        46 Nov 19 10:45 symvers-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64.xz -> /lib/modules/6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64/symvers.xz
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  13273013 Nov  2 02:00 System.map-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  11126070 Nov 13 02:00 System.map-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  12367054 Nov 13 02:00 System.map-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  18262056 Nov 14 17:33 vmlinuz-0-rescue-5b87e086273247cea88ba4202662b540
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  34215976 Nov  2 02:00 vmlinuz-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       167 Nov  2 02:00 .vmlinuz-6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64+debug.hmac
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  18184232 Nov 13 02:00 vmlinuz-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  34142248 Nov 13 02:00 vmlinuz-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       167 Nov 13 02:00 .vmlinuz-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64+debug.hmac
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       161 Nov 13 02:00 .vmlinuz-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64.hmac

$ rpm -q kernel-debug
package kernel-debug is not installed

$ rpm -q kernel-core
kernel-core-6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64

$ uname -a
Linux fedora 6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Nov 14 01:47:12 UTC 2025 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Seems like a bug in either DNF5 or RPM6.

How to remove those debug kernels properly? I tried to install and remove again a single debug kernel but it didn’t help.

2

I believe you would need to modify the command a bit. You are focused on a single package, but need to remove all the related kernel packages.

Try sudo dnf remove kernel*6.17.7* which should remove all packages related to the 6.17.7 kernel versions (including the debug kernels).
If you want to remove only the debug kernels then try
sudo dnf remove kernel-debug*6.17.7*

There are a lot of files located in places other than /boot for each kernel version installed.

To see what kernel packages may remain after running the command you showed above simply run dnf list --installed kernel*

1 Like
3

Thank you Jeff!

This is right before I tried your solution.

$ dnf list --installed kernel*
Installed packages
kernel.x86_64                    6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-core.x86_64               6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-debug-core.x86_64         6.17.7-300.fc43 updates
kernel-debug-core.x86_64         6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-debug-modules-core.x86_64 6.17.7-300.fc43 updates
kernel-debug-modules-core.x86_64 6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-headers.x86_64            6.17.4-300.fc43 updates
kernel-modules.x86_64            6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-modules-core.x86_64       6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-tools.x86_64              6.17.8-300.fc43 updates
kernel-tools-libs.x86_64         6.17.8-300.fc43 updates

Then each time I ran either sudo dnf remove kernel-debug*6.17.7* or sudo dnf remove kernel-debug*6.17.8* it removed only kernel-debug-core and kernel-debug-modules-core of each version.

Seems like in my original dnf remove command I needed to provide kernel-debug-core instead of kernel-debug in the list of packages I wanted to remove and the rest could be removed as dependencies automatically, similarly to how dnf remove of the regular kernel-core works.

Previous installation of kernel-debug confused me during its removal.

4

The kernel packages are controlled by the related meta package. For the standard kernel that is kernel and for the debug kernel that is kernel-debug. The removal of the core package seems to remove all that is related for both.