[CentOS] Replacing kernel-headers with custom compiled version (from kernel.org) - safe?

Wed Jun 26 16:51:43 UTC 2019
Akemi Yagi <amyagi at gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 5:20 AM Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello CentOS users,
>
> Currently I have compiled kernel version 4.19.37, which the source is from kernel.org. I compiled the kernel by following
> steps:
> - get the kernel tarball and unpack it
> - install prerequisties as described in https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Custom_Kernel (in addition bc and openssl-devel)
> - copy the kernel configuration:
>    $ cp /boot/config-3.10.0-957.21.3.el7.x86_64 ~/linux-4.19.37/.config
> - create configuration:
>    $ cd ~/linux-4.19.37
>    $ make olddefconfig
>    $ make nconfig
> - compile and create RPM package:
>    $ make vmlinux
>    $ make modules
>    $ make rpm-pkg
> - install kernel RPM:
>    # yum install ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/kernel-*.rpm
>
> However, in the last step (installing kernel RPM), I got following notice:
> ================================================================================
>   Package        Arch   Version
>                           Repository                                        Size
> ================================================================================
> Installing:
>   kernel         x86_64 4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1
>                           /kernel-4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1.x86_64         209 M
>   kernel-devel   x86_64 4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1
>                           /kernel-devel-4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1.x86_64   817 M
>   kernel-headers x86_64 4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1
>                           /kernel-headers-4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1.x86_64 4.6 M
>       replacing  kernel-headers.x86_64 3.10.0-957.21.3.el7
>
> Transaction Summary
> ================================================================================
> Install  3 Packages
>
> There, the compiled kernel-headers package (4.19.37_sentinel_custom-1) is about to replace stock version
> (3.10.0-957.21.3.el7). Is it safe to continue installing from compiled RPM package above, or install kernel manually?

In general, you want to keep the distro's kernel-headers unless you
also plan to play with glibc. You may find the following article
useful:

https://kernelnewbies.org/KernelHeaders

Akemi