Einar S. Idsø wrote:
Hi,
*Problem:*
I have a number of hosts spread around the country running the 2.6.12
kernel. I need to upgrade to 2.6.18, which requires udev to replace
devfs. Is there any way I can prepare /dev for this upgrade so the hosts
will boot without human interaction/booting with CD-ROM?
It *should* be as easy as emerging udev and rebooting. The init scripts default
to udev by default.
*Details:*
When I previously upgraded my own laptop a year or so ago, this led to
the lack of certain dev-nodes upon boot (/dev/console and /dev/null, I
believe), causing a kernel panic. I fixed that by booting with cd-rom
and recreating the necessary nodes, as described in section 3 here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/udev-guide.xml
These initial devices likely didn't exist in the past since devfs ran from the
kernel and operated on a virtual filesystem. Udev works completely different. It
runs entirely from userland and populates a tmpfs. Until that tmpfs is created
and udev started, those few initial nodes are requires for the init scripts.
This is of unfortunately not an option for my hosts since the majority
don't run any form of LOM, and getting a tech to stand by each host,
boot the Rescue-CD and do all sorts of stuff is a major hassle.
*Possible solution:*
I think a possible solution may be to do the following while the host is
still running its old kernel:
mount --bind / /mnt/point
cd /mnt/point/dev
mknod -m 660 console c 5 1
mknod -m 660 null c 1 3
cd /
umount /mnt/point
Will/should this work? If not: Any other suggestions?
Yes, this should do the trick. Although, the -m is likely not needed. If you are
going to use it, here's the nodes from my / (pre-udev) for reference:
crw------- 1 root tty 5, 1 Nov 13 2005 console
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Nov 13 2005 null
--
Andrew Gaffney http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer Installer Project
Today's lesson in political correctness: "Go asphyxiate on a phallus"
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