On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 10:11:35PM +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:
>
> This is one the major issues with the Linux process these days, as you move
> from kernel to kernel there is almost zero assurance of driver abi/api
> stability - and that in turn creates a situation like this wherein one
> kernel works while another does not. Its enough of a situation that on a
> lot of platforms sysadmins will not upgrade a kernel unless they really
> really need to. On CentOS and the EL codebase, this isnt so much of an
> issue because upstream do some work on trying to make sure they dont break
> driver compatibility. If they do break this compatibility, its easy to
> detect.
>
> And most of the heavy lifting is getting done by a fairly simple shell
> script called weak-modules, based in /sbin/ and comes from
> module-init-tools.rpm
>
> weak-modules will basically take a given driver .ko and check what other
> kernels installed at this time will work with it, it will then create the
> symlinks for each of those kernels to point at this .ko. It will then check
> each initrd in the /boot dir, and update each initrd for kernels it found
> compatible with the driver. Rather than overwrite the initrd, it will
> create a new one with the same-name but followed by a number. It will then
> edit /etc/grub.conf and add a *new* section for this just created initrd.
> So when you reboot the machine you have the choice to boot the kernel.rpm
> shipped initrd or the newly updated one.
>
> Ok, so how does this work ? lets say you have drivers ( from install time )
> in /lib/modules/2.6.8-8.el5/updates/
>
> 1) sudo to root
>
> 2) find /lib/modules/2.6.8-8.el5/updates | /sbin/weak-modules --add-modules
This didn't work. I did:
ls -1 /lib/modules/2.6.8-8.el5/updates | /sbin/weak-modules --add-modules
>
> 3) watch the blinking lights, depending on how many kernels you have
> installed it could be a few seconds
>
> 4) check /boot/ and make sure you have the new updated initrd's for all
> kernels you thought it would work with.
>
> 5) check /etc/grub.conf for new sections [1]
>
> 6) reboot with whatever kernel + initrd you want
All worked fine for the 2.6.18-8.1.8.el5xen kernel.
>
> 7) all further kernels brought down by yum from the centos repos will auto
> magically get this driver included in the initrd. ( rpm -q --scripts
> kernel-version will show you what happens in the post install section, and
> how weak-updates does an --add-kernel )
New kernel was released, so I did yum update. The new kernel boots, but
does not see the raid devices on the 3ware card. the update also seems to
have removed my install kernel (2.6.18-8.el5xen). Did that step on
something? If I boot the 2.6.18-8.1.8el5xen kernel, I still see my raid
devices, so it worked for the first update...
> >I will try this in a few moments. One last observation though, 3Ware has
> >a newer driver for the updated kernel. If I wish to use it, is it a simple
> >matter of replacing the 3w-9xxx.ko file with the appropriate one? If it
> >is more complicated than that, where do I find info about this issue?
>
> well, in this case, build that .ko agains the oldest kernel-devel you have
> on the machine ( ideally, I should say only against the installtime kernel,
> but lots of people dont have that hanging around :/ ) and weak-modules
> should do its magic.
There is a pre-built (by 3ware) .ko file for 2.6.18-8.1.8.el5xen
I don't know what to do with it though.
> Slight change in plan, I did this braindump and you get to write the wiki
> page :)
I've never done a wiki page, but I'm okay with writing this all up, once I
understand it. I can put what you wrote above (with some minor fixes), but
it didn't exactly work out for further kernel updates... Not sure what
to say about that.
> You might also want to look and see how the
> /lib/modules/<kver>/extras/ directory contents are handled and include some
> info on that. Since that would basically address non install time .ko
The extras dir in the orig install kernel tree is empty. So is the
weak-updates dir, since the kernel update removed the install kernel???
The 2.6.18-8.1.8.el5xen tree has a weak updates tree which appears to duplicate
the old lib/modules tree. It looks like this:
/lib/modules/2.6.18-8.1.8.el5xen/weak-updates/lib/modules/2.6.18-8.el5xen/updates/3w-9xxx.ko
So I'm completely confused at this point...
-chuck
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