Broke modprobe
 

Hi everyone, can anyone fix my problem?

I installed a newer version of module-init-tools from source but I forgot to use "make moveold" to keep my old modprobe stuff. Now whenever I try to run modprobe, I get this error message:

Anyone know how I can get modprobe to work again? I can't run most of my RedHat configuration tools without loading the python module which I can't do without modprobe!

Things I have already tried:
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1.) Uninstalling the new version using make uninstall, then downloading the old version of modprobe and compiling and installing it. Then reinstalling the new version using make moveold before doing make and make install.

2.) Doing the above using ./configure --prefix=/

Neither has worked.

Thanks,
Vince

Ugh. Sounds ugly.

I've had a few redhat kernels that wouldn't compile or wouldn't work correctly after a compile because the source tree was dirty. "make clean" doesn't completely clean out the source tree, here's how to do it right:
1. Backup the config you are going to use; it will probably be deleted!
2. Run "make mrproper".
3. Restore the config file.
4. "make clean dep bzImage modules install modules_install"

I don't actually think this will solve your problem, but it's something to try if you've run out of ideas.

Thanks, but what do you mean by "the source tree was dirty"? Everything in the kernel works perfectly except for the modules.

Okay, looks like modprobe has failed for my old kernel as well now. Now I can't even get on the Internet or mount my VFAT filesystem because they're in modules on my old kernel. All I did was use ./configure --prefix=/, now my old kernel is messed up too.

What does it mean when modprobe declares "modprobe.old -- I am not the old version!"? Does that mean each kernel needs a specific version of modprobe? if so, how do I know which version? That's the message I get after I reinstall mod-init-tools 0.9.10 and then module-init-tools-0.9.14 using make moveold > make > make install.

kernel 2.6 requires mod-init-tools. when u built and installed mod init tools, they overwrote your old modutils and did not convert your modules.conf -> modprobe.conf. at least that's what i presume. what you must do now is generate the modprobe.conf manually from your old modules.conf and the hard-coded aliases in the old modprobe. These aliases are available from util/alias.h in the modutils source tarball. the format for modprobe.conf and modules.conf is exactly the same.

So modutils is different from module-init-tools? And where do I get my old modules.conf from?

yes. they're different. 2.6 uses modinittools, modinittool can be used with the older kernels PROVIDED you have the old modutils and successfully converted them to the *.old names successfully. modules.conf should have already been in your old system under /etc if you didnt muck with it.