Re: Modules and New Kernels

[Gregory Walter <gsw SqEarth Com>]

Hello All,

     I upgraded from 2.0.35 to 2.0.36 some months ago by downloading the
kernel and header RPMs and compiling the kernel and modules.  I got all
the way through "make modules_install" and everything's been working
fine.

     However, a couple weeks ago I saw a post to redhat-dev regarding
dealing with modules during a kernel upgrade.  It indicated that I
needed to:

     cat /proc/version > /lib/modules/<<verions>>/.rhkmvtag

in order to get the .rhkmvtag in my /lib/modules/2.0.36.  I did this
since I had also noticed that my links had never changed in /boot and
the post indicated that adding .rhkmvtag as desribed would cause the
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit to fix those links and add a soft link of
/lib/modules/preferred to my 2.0.36 module directory.

     Turns out that after doing this, some of my modules wouldn't load
automatically.  My 3c59x still loaded when I booted, but vfat, for
instance, did not (that is, it did not load when I tried to mount a vfat
disk; it did not load on demand).  To use it I had to use /sbin/insmod. 
I also found that a link was made /boot/module-info ->
/boot/module-info-2.0.36 even though I don't have a file called
/boot/module-info-2.0.36.  

     I played around and found that if I do an "/sbin/depmod -a 2.0.36"
then all the modules start loading automatically and correctly. 
However, if I only do an "/sbin/depmod -a preferred", the modules still
do not load on demand.  It appears that if a /lib/modules/preferred link
exists, then my rc.sysinit script does the latter i.e., a depmod of
"preferred" instead of 2.0.36.  Is that why my modules don't work
correctly after a reboot?  How should this really be set up?  And do I
need a module-info-2.0.36 file?  If so, where do I get it or how do I
create it?

     Thanks for your help.

-Greg

p.s.  The script from the previous post which I followed, essentially,
is shown below.


Greg Herlein wrote:

> 
> ########################################################################
> #!/bin/sh
> cd /usr/src/linux
> rm -rf /lib/modules/2.2.1
> make dep
> make clean
> make modules
> make modules_install
> make bzImage
> depmod -a 2.2.1
> cp -a /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/custom-2.2.1
> cp /usr/src/linux/System.map /boot/System.map-2.2.1
> cat /proc/version > /lib/modules/2.2.1/.rhkmvtag
> lilo
> ########################################################################
> 
> WARNING!  This script assumes that /etc/lilo.conf is set up to boot
> custom compiled kernels from /boot/custom-<version number>; you will
> need to edit these entries by hand before running this script, or
> re-run lilo after you make the edit.
>