[Centos] Kernel packages and 3rd party kernel modules

Hi,

I'd like to come back to this topic. We've discussed this before on IRC 
but there's still no acceptable solution implemented.

3rd party kernel-modules are build against the official Red Hat kernels, 
to make them work with the TaoLinux/CentOS kernels there are specific 
requirements:

	+ kernel RPM package should provide the same version/release
	+ kernel version/release should be the same for
		o /lib/modules/kernel-version-release
		o /boot/vmlinuz-version-release

This means there's not much room for customization if you want 3rd party 
modules to work. You can have a different version in the RPM as long as 
the Red Hat version/release is also provided by the package and the 
kernel-files/directories have the exact version/release.


To give you a better understanding of the pitfalls:

| Installing a kernel-module, beware that I already do not require an 
| exact version for the kernel RPM package, because that has other 
| problems. Still I need to make sure I have an exact kernel and that's 
| why we use the vmlinuz file.

	[root at breeg root]# rpm -ihvU kernel-module-openswan-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL-2.1.2-1.1.el3.dag.i586.rpm 
	error: Failed dependencies:
	        /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL is needed by kernel-module-openswan-2.4.21-15.0.2.EL-2.1.2-1.1.el3.dag


| Loading a module (I --nodeps installed the module), gives the following 
| warning. Beware that the module is placed in 
| /lib/modules/version-release which is different currently than the one 
| from TaoLinux. So people can't just do "modprobe ipsec":

	[root at breeg modules]# insmod /lib/modules/2.4.21-15.0.2.EL/kernel/net/openswan/ipsec.o      
	Warning: kernel-module version mismatch
	        2.4.21-15.0.2.EL/kernel/net/openswan/ipsec.o was compiled for kernel version 2.4.21-15.0.2.EL
	        while this kernel is version 2.4.21-15.TL2
	Warning: loading 2.4.21-15.0.2.EL/kernel/net/openswan/ipsec.o will taint the kernel: forced load
	  See http://www.tux.org/lkml/#export-tainted for information about tainted modules
	Module ipsec loaded, with warnings


Although I can make it work like this, this is far from optimal and for 
other 3rd party kernel modules this isn't even guaranteed to work.

PS I tried with a CentOS kernel, but I can't seem to find a i586 kernel on 
the website.

--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]