On Aug 20, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Ross McKerchar wrote:

Hi Guys,

I have a product which requires it's own kernel module. The vendor provides pre-built kernel modules that are compiled against the stock Red Hat kernels but the product does not successfully identify and load these binary modules on my Cent OS machines. I'm in a discussion with the vendor about fixing this so that the product successfully identifies the Red Hat modules as compatible. However we're not sure if these binary modules will indeed be 100% compatible with the corresponding Cent OS kernel for any given version. The concern was that tiny differences between the kernels, say, the name of the build host, could change the address of a data structure in the kernel which the pre-built module attempts to use.

Does this sound like a valid concern? Where does the attempt to provide 100% binary compatibility end? The source for these kernel modules is actually available but I am trying to avoid having to build custom modules.

Here's one suggestion ...

Look for DKMS (Dell Kernel Module System iirc) which will undertake module rebuilds and more. There's a similar/equivalent system in SuSE iirc but I've forgot the name.

hth

73 de Jeff

On Friday 20 August 2010, Ross McKerchar wrote:

Hi Guys,

This is OT for centos-devel, you should've posted on the main list.

I have a product which requires it's own kernel module. The vendor provides pre-built kernel modules that are compiled against the stock Red Hat kernels but the product does not successfully identify and load these binary modules on my Cent OS machines. I'm in a discussion with the vendor about fixing this so that the product successfully identifies the Red Hat modules as compatible. However we're not sure if these binary modules will indeed be 100% compatible with the corresponding Cent OS kernel for any given version. The concern was that tiny differences between the kernels, say, the name of the build host, could change the address of a data structure in the kernel which the pre-built module attempts to use.

Does this sound like a valid concern? Where does the attempt to provide 100% binary compatibility end? The source for these kernel modules is actually available but I am trying to avoid having to build custom modules.

CentOS uses the same kABI as RHEL if I'm not mistaken so it should be ok. As usual however, you get to keep the pieces if it breaks (if you want testing/certification you buy RHEL).

/Peter