This is how you find out what kernel yum thinks you are running:
import yum from rpmUtils.transaction import initReadOnlyTransaction ts = initReadOnlyTransaction() print yum.misc.get_running_kernel_pkgtup(ts)
...or, with less imports and more yum:
import yum yb = yum.YumBase() ts = yb.rpmdb.readOnlyTS() print yum.misc.get_running_kernel_pkgtup(ts)