Re: Installation troubles

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]



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

_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

[Index of Archives]     [CentOS]     [CentOS Announce]     [CentOS Development]     [CentOS ARM Devel]     [CentOS Docs]     [CentOS Virtualization]     [Carrier Grade Linux]     [Linux Media]     [Asterisk]     [DCCP]     [Netdev]     [Xorg]     [Linux USB]
  Powered by Linux