On a cPanel server you may see this warning:
You’ll notice the link “Add KernelCare’s Free Symlink Protection” but clicking it bring up either a blank page, or it redirects to the same page and the same message appears, or you’ll get this shiner:
Ensuring that KernelCare is installed …
The free symlink protection patch is being enabled. You will be redirected to SecurityAdvisor when this is complete.KernelCare was installed, but could not enable the free patch set.
Researching and finding the circular cPanel forum replies is a total mess:
The articles cPanel brings out says ignore it (IGNORE A SECURITY WARNING??):
The first post, by @WorkOnIt, is the answer (if it’s installed):
yum remove kernelcare
Then
curl -s https://repo.cloudlinux.com/kernelcare/kernelcare_install. sh | bash kcarectl --set-patch-type free --update
Trying to follow the post on that forum? cPanel’s forum has the worst session state.
If it worked, you’ll have something like this:
Installed: kernelcare-2.96-1.el9.x86_64 Complete! 'free' patch type selected Downloading updates Patch level 25 applied. Effective kernel version 5.14.0-503.40.1.el9_5 Kernel is safe
Ubuntu?
To start afresh, you can try this:
apt purge kernelcare
Then
curl -s https://repo.cloudlinux.com/kernelcare/kernelcare_install. sh | bash
Then try update twice ignoring the first error and waiting suitable long the second time.
kcarectl --update
When updating, you might get this:
kcarectl --set-patch-type free --update 'free' patch type is unavailable for your kernel
Here is the brute force way to fix it on Ubuntu:
root@server:~# kcarectl --set-patch-type free --update 'free' patch type is unavailable for your kernel root@server:~# kcarectl --info No patches applied, but some are available, run 'kcarectl --update'. root@server:~# kcarectl --update Downloading updates Patch level 1 applied. Effective kernel version 5.15.0-138.148 Kernel is safe root@server:~# kcarectl --set-patch-type free --update 'free' patch type is unavailable for your kernel
Another brute force way:
root@host:~# kcarectl --update Downloading updates Requesting trial license for IP a.b.c.d. Please wait... HTTP Error 401: Unauthorized: https://patches.kernelcare.com/patches/K20250420_17/8a515a459b11a690690d5632d4a7cfcf2b0cbce8/3/kpatch.bin root@host:~# kcarectl --set-patch-type free --update 'free' patch type is unavailable for your kernel root@host:~# kcarectl --update Downloading updates Unable to access server. Retrying... Patch level 3 applied. Effective kernel version 5.4.0-214.234 Kernel is safe