[elrepo-devel] kmod packaging (was Re: Two things about kversion)

[Farkas Levente]

On 07/12/2010 02:25 PM, Alan Bartlett wrote:
> On 22 April 2010 00:35, Jon Masters <jonathan at jonmasters.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, 2010-04-20 at 10:04 +0200, Farkas Levente wrote:
>>> On 04/20/2010 03:29 AM, Akemi Yagi wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I would like to start a discussion about a couple of things regarding
>>>> "kversion".
>>>>
>>>> (1) Which version of kernel should a kmod package be built against?
>>
>>> i vote for the oldest possible version which is good enough to build it
>>> and hardcode it into the spec file. otherwise it very difficult to build
>>> in mock since in mock uname -r is NOT the chrooted env's kernel but the
>>> host machine's release and it cause eg. for me a lots of headache
>>> (building fedora kmod on a centos build farm is rather tricky thing).
>>
>> I would also recommend building against the oldest kernel that you want
>> to be using.
>>
>> Jon.
> 
> Resurrecting this thread . . .
> 
> Having had internal discussions (mainly Phil & I, by telephone) and
> gradual, incremental refinements to the ELRepo kmod build process for
> EL5 (as a result of establishing a similar process for EL6), I would
> like to draw your attention to the e1000e kmod package that I have
> just updated (to version 1.2.8) today.
> 
> The src.rpm file [1] is an example of building against the oldest
> kernel (5.0, -8.el5, in this case) and provides packages that are kABI
> compatible with the entire range of released kernels (5.0 to 5.5,
> -8.el5 to -194.8.1.el5).
> 
> Of course both the kmodspec-el5 [2] and kmodtool-el5 [3] template
> files also provide generic examples.
> 
> Alan.
> 
> [1] http://elrepo.org/linux/elrepo/el5/SRPMS/e1000e-kmod-1.2.8_NAPI-1.el5.elrepo.src.rpm
> [2] http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmodspec-el5
> [3] http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmodtool-el5

hi,
for me the most important would be one common, usable way to build kmod
packages. we can now forget the support for all old el4, el5 version.
since it's clear that we can't solve it for those distros. but we've got
a change (before 6 GA) to made modification/fixes to the current state.
for this there are a few packages to review:
- redhat-rpm-config (kmodtool, macros %kernel_module_package)
- kabi-yum-plugins (which should have to be called yum-plugin-kabi)
- yum regarding to the kernel-module<->kabi-module provides and module
update/install mechanism (which is currently wrong).
- one common spec file template.

i wrote an earlier mail [1] about my thought mainly that i like to see
one common kmodtool, since currently (imho more then 90% of) elrepo use
the same kmodtool included in the source. in stead of we can use
/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/kmodtool and only a few exception case include a
modified one.

another suggestion to to use the same for %kernel_module_package as
kmodtool.


[1] http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2008-December/003844.html

ps. jon are you subscribed to this list?

pss. i'm on vacation with my son on this week, but try to read mails.

-- 
  Levente                               "Si vis pacem para bellum!"