Hi,

I'm having problems rebuilding 2.6.8-24 kernel with SMP enabled in a SuSE 9.2 Professional installation. The rebuild itself completes without incident, but the modules that are built and installed appear to be for a uni-processor kernel. As a result, installing any of the newly built modules results in "Invalid module format" error messages.

The procedure I followed:
1. Clean SuSE 9.2 Professional install from CDs.
2. Copy sources to a new directory and set up appropriate links.
3. # make menuconfig
Set Processor type and features --->Symmetric multi-processing support
Set Build options --->Configuration name as appropriate
4. # make dep clean
5. # make dep (which does nothing)
6. # make bzImage
7. # make modules
8. # make modules_install
9. Rename /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage appropriately
10. Copy new image to /boot
11. In /boot, create soft link to new image.
12. Modify /boot/grub/menu.lst
13. Boot into new kernel.

Error message during boot:
Loading kernel/fs/reiserfs/reiserfs.ko
reiserfs: disagrees about version of symbol struct_module
insmod: error inserting '/lib/modules/2.6.8-24-mpt/kernel/fs/reiserfs/reiserfs.ko' : -1 Invalid module format
Waiting for device /dev/hda2 to appear: ok
rootfs: major=3 minor=2 devn=770
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,2)

I have confirmed the cause of this error is that the new modules are built without SMP support.

The procedure I followed and outlined above worked without problems in SuSE 9.1 Professional, kernel 2.6.4-52.

Please let me know what step I have missed in the configuration of the new kernel.

Thanks,
Terry

I am not sure, but did you change the EXTRAVERSION of your kernel (-mpt)? Then you need to make a new ramdisk (using the module from /lib/modules/'uname -r').

I did not explicitly modify EXTRAVERSION in /usr/src/linux/Makefile. The assignment is the default:
EXTRAVERSION = -$(shell echo $(CONFIG_RELEASE)-$(CONFIG_CFGNAME))

I did, however, modify CONFIG_CFGNAME in /usr/src/linux/.config, which should result in a change to EXTRAVERSION.

I did not make a new ramdisk. I will try that step when I have time to get back to this exercise. (I've just been yanked into a new crisis with higher priority.)

Is there a command that displays the smp/up property of a given module? I tried 'modinfo' but that doesn't display this information, unless I missed some option.

Thanks,
Terry

1. make dep is deprecated in 2.6
2. suggest to build fs into kernel not as a module. As far as I know you need first working/recognized fs for anything to load?
3. if you REALLY don't want to build fs into kernel: use mkinitrd (and ad to GRUB)
4. modify GRUB so it will point to right device. In your case
root=0302

taken from yours:
"rootfs: major=3 minor=2"


In SuSE you should not modify EXTRAVERSION:
EXTRAVERSION = -$(shell echo $(CONFIG_RELEASE)-$(CONFIG_CFGNAME))

it clearly points out to your config file. You can modify kernel name by changing last lines in your .config

Building the fs into kernel would resolve this particular instance of the problem. However, _all_ modules built exhibit the same behavior (verified by copying four newly built modules (the ones that I care about) into the modules directory created at installation. This resulted in same "Invalid module format" when I 'insmod').

I will try the 'mkinitrd' as you suggest. Just not sure when I'll get to it.

Thanks,
Terry

'mkinitrd' did the trick! Apparently, earlier versions of the kernel that I had rebuilt had succeeded only by accident, not because I had done the process correctly.

Thanks to all!

For everybody's information, the 'mkinitrd' command I invoked:

# mkinitrd -b /boot -d /dev/hda2 -m reiserfs -k /boot/vmlinuz-kernel-name -i /boot/initrd-kernel-name
(substitute required string for all instances of "kernel-name")

Terry