[CentOS-devel] [EXT] Re: RFC: Stream Kernel SIG Proposal

Peter Georg

peter.georg at physik.uni-regensburg.de
Thu Feb 11 00:03:39 UTC 2021



On 10/02/2021 22.51, Brian Stinson wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2021, at 13:17, redbaronbrowser via CentOS-devel wrote:
>> On Wednesday, January 20, 2021 9:31 AM, Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I've confirmed with the team, the git repo is going to be all the normal git patches you would expect (IE: not arbitrarily munged together in some way).  There's one or two more things they're configuring with gitlab and they expect to have an actual repo that you can look at / poke at to validate what I'm saying in a few weeks.
>>>
>>>             -Mike
>>
>> Mike, is there any status update on individual patches applied to Stream's kernel?
>>
>> Can we move forward with this SIG so I can publish the information I already have?
>>
>> What about a Stream Plus kernel?  The directory for Stream still has no packages at all.
>>
>> Or delivering kpatch live security updates without a reboot?
>>
>> I am ready to move forward immediately if the SIG is approved.  Is there a reason to wait another "few weeks"?
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> 
> I see your questions roughly grouped in 3 categories, correct me if I've misinterpreted:
> 
> - How do I get patches into the Stream kernel *now*?
> Have you submitted any bugs against CentOS Stream on bugzilla.redhat.com with your patches? I want to make sure, first, that we have an actual answer because some of them may indeed be workable for inclusion in RHEL.
> 
> All contributions for RHEL/Stream 8 (not just the kernel) are flowing through this bugzilla process for right now.
> 
> - When can we see the new kernel workflows?
> I don't have specific date/time when we expect to see the new-way of doing kernel repos but I would check https://gitlab.com/redhat/ towards the end of the month. Those will be targeted at RHEL/Stream 9 kernels. I'm asking around about some of the work we're doing to make the Stream 8 kernel sources more accessible in a format that isn't just tarballs.
> 
> - How do I get kernels that are not shipped in-distro?
> Here's the problem as it exists right now, Kernels typically need secureboot signatures on them, and we don't have the infrastructure we need to make those signatures happen in the community build system. We're talking about ways to enable that directly in CBS, but in the meantime we plan to take community-based kernels and assist with getting builds done on infrastructure that can do signing. Note: this affects other packages like fwupd, grub, etc. We are absolutely open to continuing to build the Plus kernel. Would it make sense to get yourself, @toracat for the Plus kernel, and whoever else is interested in building kernels together on IRC to talk about how to handle coordination here?

Please add me to the list of interested people (@pjgeorg in IRC).

Let me note that I have a different goal that might be added to this SIG 
and is not part of the four goals listed in the initial proposal:

5. Package external kernel modules

So far (running CentOS Linux) I have been using various different 
sources for kmod packages (and built some locally). However many of 
these officially only support RHEL (most prominent on this list: ELRepo. 
At least according to recent comments by Phil Perry. I haven't seen any 
comments by other contributors). For the time being I "fix" this locally 
by using dkms packages if avaible or maintain dkms packages myself for 
modules that are otherwise only provided as kmod packages. I really 
dislike doing such a job locally without any open collaboration. Just 
feels wrong working with open source software without trying to 
collaborate "upstream". Hence my interest in contributing to the 
proposed SIG.

At first I'd suggest starting with drivers included in upstream kernel 
but disabled by Red Hat. Yes, these are also available by using the 
CentOS Plus kernel. However I, and maybe other users as well, prefer to 
run the "vanilla" CentOS Stream kernel and add missing drivers as 
external kernel modules as required. And of course, ELRepo currently 
provides exactly this. However most of these can sadly not be used for 
CentOS Stream. This also applies to building LTS kernel packages for 
CentOS Stream. As Phil Perry mentioned this is and has already been done 
by ELRepo for some time. I agree with Matthew Miller here: These things 
should be connected. On a side note: The Hyperscale SIG seems to be 
interested in providing LTS kernel(s) for CentOS Stream as well (has 
been mentioned in their talk at the CentOS Dojo last week).

Once everything is set up and working for these simpler cases, packages 
for any other kernel modules that are of use for CentOS Stream users can 
be added.

Please let me know what you think about adding this goal to the proposed 
SIG. Of course I'm especially interested in comments/opinions by people 
currently involved in building the CentOS Plus kernel and/or ELRepo.

Thanks!

Peter



> 
> With regard to distributing kpatch updates, I'd advise caution here. I get the sense that there may be problems building and testing all of the combinations of kpatches that a SIG might want to ship.
> 
> Let me know if there's anything else I can help with.
> 
> --Brian
> 
> 
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