[Linux-streams] 2.17.R and autloading modules

[Jeff Goldszer]

Gentlmen,   Currently I am testing with Red Hat 8, Kernel 2.4.21 SMP.   I have stumbled on to what I believe is a time sensitive bug that is in modutils version  2.4.18.   I have a LiS streams loadable modules (call it module modA) and another loadable module which modA is dependent on (call it module modB).   Modprobe “modA” always seems to work, however writing a program which opens a device associated with modA is another story. ModA fails to load because modB fails mysteriously fails to load.   There is a warning that displays when insmod (insmod –s) output is directed to syslogd: insmod: symlink to directory is not allowed, misc ignored   This message is telling us there is a recursive link misc->/lib/modules/2.4.x/misc.   Removing the recursive links seems to cure the problem.     This recursive link is created from LiS-2.17/modules/Makefile Line 44-45:     $(Q)(cd $(DESTDIR)$(pkgdatadir)/linux-$(KVER) && \         $(LN) $(MOD_INST_DIR) modules)   Modifying  LiS-2.17/modules/Makefile Line 44-45 as shown below, eliminates the recursive link     $(Q)(cd $(DESTDIR)$(pkgdatadir)/linux-$(KVER) && \         $(LN) $(MOD_INST_DIR) modules && rm -f modules/misc )     For completeness I show excerpts below of /etc/module.conf   alias           char-major-8   modB install         modB           insmod -v -s -f -m modB major=8 >/tmp/modb.map                          alias           char-major-23   modA install         modA           insmod -f -m modA major=23 >/tmp/modA.map                              Jeff Goldszer Senior Software Engineer Alebra Technologies 64-5 Brook Avenue Deer Park, NY 11729 Phone: 631-254-1386 FAX: 631-242-7786