> yum then fails because it cannot install those modules because it > cannot install the new kernel. So I have to go back into > /etc/yum.conf and exclude some specific versions of those modules. I'm not that familiar on this subject, but I think it's an unfortunate necessity of yum's design. You're effectively telling it to upgrade a module. But the new version of the module requires a new kernel. If the new kernel can't be installed for any reason, that implies that the module has failed to upgrade, which is an error.