Kernel Compiling

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Mi, den 29.06.2005 schrieb Robby Tanner um 23:16:

> I've just started to get my feet wet by downloading kernel sources and
> compiling my first kernel.
> 
> I'm using FC3-i386 and downloaded the latest SRPMS.
> 
> A few questions:
> 
> 1)  When I did a mkinitrd against the existing /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667,

That is the original FC3 kernel, old and vulnerable.

> the resulting initrd image was a different size then the one already in
> place from the initial FC3 install.  Is that because the SRPMS have been
> updated since I downloaded the ISO (which was quite some time ago)?

The size of the initial ramdisk image file depends on the kernel modules
included into the image. You may have different hardware in your PC now
and when the old initrd.img was created or different settings in
/etc/modprobe.conf.

> 2)  My first step is always to try reproducing what already exists (i.e.
> byte for byte identical bzImage and initrd, for example).  I just feel
> better that way, starting from a known point.  I noticed some references
> to a .config file that can be used, however, I couldn't find it.  Is
> there a link explaining how to go about using this information?

/boo/config-<version> is the .config of the installed RPM kernel.

> 3)  After installing the source RPM, it doesn't show up under rpm -qa, I
> assume that's normal.  Then, I untarred the linux-2.6.9 archive using (I
> think) tar xvj, is that right?  

SRPMs do not register in the rpm_db. They just deflate.
No, what you did is not correct. You have the vanilla 2.6.9 kernel
without any patch the Fedora 2.6.9-1.667 had.

> 4)  There was a load of .patch files in the SOURCES dir, some from pre
> 2.6.9 kernels.  Do I need to apply those in order before compiling?

Yes, sure. Else they are just on your hard drive and do nothing.

> 5)  What, if anything do I do with patch-2.6.9-final.bz2 and
> patch-2.6.9-final-bk2.bz2?

Misses the other patches.

rpmbuild -bp --target=<arch> kernel-2.6.spec

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc3/x86/

The release notes contain the instructions. Didn't you read them?

> 6)  I got a kernel and initrd generated and got it to boot, however I
> received a pile of messages that don't appear when firing up one of the
> stock kernels.  What have I done wrong?  A sample is provided, there
> were plenty more, but these are fairly representative.
> 
> audit(1119997562.606:0): avc:  denied  { write } for  pid=2082
> exe=/sbin/minilogd dev=tmpfs ino=977 scontext=user_u:system_r:syslogd_t
> tcontext=user_u:object_r:tmpfs_t tclass=dir
> audit(1119997562.606:0): avc:  denied  { read write } for  pid=2083
> exe=/sbin/minilogd dev=tmpfs ino=978 scontext=user_u:system_r:syslogd_t
> tcontext=user_u:object_r:tmpfs_t tclass=chr_file

These are SELinux messages, so called audit / avc messages.
The CVS server is just not available for me. I guess you missed SELinux
patches with your route described in 5)

> Rob

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG http://pgp.mit.edu 0xB366A773
legal statement: http://www.uni-x.org/legal.html
Fedora Core 2 GNU/Linux on Athlon with kernel 2.6.11-1.35_FC2smp 
Serendipity 00:19:22 up 4 days, 7:11, load average: 0.32, 0.23, 0.20 
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