[elrepo] kmod-ecryptfs.x86_64 on Centos Stream fails

[Manuel Wolfshant]

On 2/3/21 11:48 AM, lejeczek via elrepo wrote:
>
>
> On 31/01/2021 15:51, Akemi Yagi wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 7:43 AM Manuel Wolfshant 
>> <wolfy at nobugconsulting.ro <mailto:wolfy at nobugconsulting.ro>> wrote:
>>
>>     On January 31, 2021 4:14:17 PM GMT+02:00, lejeczek via
>>     elrepo <elrepo at lists.elrepo.org
>>     <mailto:elrepo at lists.elrepo.org>> wrote:
>>     >
>>     >
>>     >On 31/01/2021 13:44, Trevor Hemsley wrote:
>>     >> On 31/01/2021 10:38, lejeczek via elrepo wrote:
>>     >> > Does anybody else get this and if yes then should
>>     it go to
>>     >> > bugzilla?
>>     >>
>>     >> ELRepo do not support Stream since it uses a
>>     different,
>>     >> non-KABI stable,
>>     >> kernel series to RHEL. This is something that's
>>     come up
>>     >> several times in
>>     >> the mailing list etc threads on what Red Hat are doing
>>     >> with CentOS Linux 8.
>>     >>
>>     >> Trevor
>>     >>
>>     >And what is the actual problem? Surely it's not one of
>>     >technical nature.
>>     >Increasingly more of us will be ridding "Stream" as
>>     months
>>     >go by.
>>     >many thanks, L.
>>
>>     The problem is that Stream has a rolling kernel with
>>     no stable kABI, released whenever someone in RH feels
>>     like releasing a new test upon users.
>>     The volunteers from ElRepo do not have the resources
>>     to support that and RH, so far, does not give a s**t
>>     on the features not supported directly by _their_
>>     kernel.  Which , incidentally, means exactly what
>>     ElRepo ships.
>>
>>     wolfy
>>
>>
>> In addition to the detailed explanation by Trovor and also by wolfy, 
>> you can refer to the ELRepo blog post:
>>
>> http://elrepoproject.blogspot.com/2021/01/elrepo-and-centos-stream.html 
>> <http://elrepoproject.blogspot.com/2021/01/elrepo-and-centos-stream.html> 
>>
>>
>> Akemi
>>
> You guys sound really worried as if RH is about to spit a new kernel 
> every other day - do you really think that?

Experience has shown that RH issues quite a few different intermediate 
kernels before minor releases, each time they want to test some fix in 
any kernel sub-system. Just compare the changelog differences between 
the last kernel issued as update for a minor release and the first 
kernel released for the next minor release.



> Are Elrepo's kernel a work-around solution for cases with kmods and 
> similar?

As already mentioned several times, ElRepo packages are maintained by 
volunteers who have limited time and resources and cannot commit to a 
moving target. Especially as

a) there is no integration between the kernel infra and ELRepo. We are 
limited to reacting post-factum.

b) the packages from ElRepo do not have a guarantee of using only the 
symbols from RHEL's kABI list. Therefore any update may break one or 
more packages. Not to forget here that RH introduces backports which can 
change significantly the kernel interface between minor releases of 
RHEL. All those backports would almost certainly break "stuff".


Rebuilding the affected kmods each time a new Stream kernel is released 
looks more like a job for a CentOS SIG, assuming that there is enough 
traction to create one.


wolfy