Re: [gentoo-user] SOLVED gentoo-sources menuconfig feature/weirdness
On 02/23/2012 01:08 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote: On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:48:35 +0200 Coert Waagmeesterlgro...@waagmeester.co.za wrote: On 02/23/2012 11:17 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:51:43 +0200, Coert Waagmeester wrote: The only thing I can currently think of is maybe the kernel config files in /boot? I'd say it's more likely to be getting it from /proc/config.gz. But why start with a clean config each time? That means you have plenty of opportunities to produce a broken kernel on every update. Is there a way to import old config files with newer kernel sources? I tried it once by simply copying .config into the newer src dir, but I read somewhere that there could be incompatibilities. That is exactly how you do it. Copy a .config over and run make oldconfig I am definitely going to try this. Yes, there could be incompatibilities. This might happen once every few years when you do an upgrade over 10 version numbers. But that can be fixed. Not doing it this way means a very high likelyhood of the machine not booting with every single upgrade, plus the huge amount of work it takes to go through everything in menuconfig. indeed, especially when the server is stuck in a far away rack. The choices are simple, - low risk of occasional breakage - high risk of frequent breakage Thank you all
Re: [gentoo-user] SOLVED gentoo-sources menuconfig feature/weirdness
On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:16:41 +0200 Coert Waagmeester lgro...@waagmeester.co.za wrote: Not doing it this way means a very high likelyhood of the machine not booting with every single upgrade, plus the huge amount of work it takes to go through everything in menuconfig. indeed, especially when the server is stuck in a far away rack. Ooh, those are the scary ones. Two excellent things can help with that: A proper RAC setup, or Copy the debian boot scheme, where is a kernel won't boot, it panics and times out after 30 seconds. Grub then automagically boots the previous working kernel. Just don't do what I did earlier: sit in Joburg and configure the firewall on a Xen host in deepest darkest Africa where there's no tarred roads to get to it. Check the iptables config three times, plus get your colleagues to look it over as well. We all signed off on it. Guess what? Yup, you got it. We all missed something and now we are locked out. Remember, it's in deepest darkest Africa. sigh -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] SOLVED gentoo-sources menuconfig feature/weirdness
On Thu, February 23, 2012 12:25 pm, Alan McKinnon wrote: Just don't do what I did earlier: sit in Joburg and configure the firewall on a Xen host in deepest darkest Africa where there's no tarred roads to get to it. How did you get the server there? Flown it in? I've seen the roads in Africa and those are difficult to navigate... (The tarmac'd ones are decent though) Check the iptables config three times, plus get your colleagues to look it over as well. We all signed off on it. Guess what? Yup, you got it. We all missed something and now we are locked out. Remember, it's in deepest darkest Africa. That's why I like the ADMINISABSENTMINDED option in the Shorewall config. It doesn't kill existing connections. I always test a new remote connection prior to closing the one I used to change it with. If I do accidentally kill my existing connection, the safe_restart option will cause it to roll-back if I don't accept the new settings before a time-out. -- Joost
Re: [gentoo-user] SOLVED gentoo-sources menuconfig feature/weirdness
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Coert Waagmeester lgro...@waagmeester.co.za wrote: On 02/23/2012 01:08 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote: SNIP Is there a way to import old config files with newer kernel sources? I tried it once by simply copying .config into the newer src dir, but I read somewhere that there could be incompatibilities. That is exactly how you do it. Copy a .config over and run make oldconfig I am definitely going to try this. If I can offer one additional step then at the end also do a make menuconfig even if you don't intend to change anything. The additional menuconfig runs checks on the combination of options selected and not selected and in some cases will pop up some messages about incorrect/inconsistent settings. No messages means it's OK to do the build, but if you get messages then it's best to take care of them before building. HTH, Mark
