Hello,
I've been reading SystemImager docs and looking over the code for 'mkbootpackage'. I realize the 'mkbootpackage' is experimental but I believe it's doing what I need. I must admit I got a bit confused as I tried to figure out what ram disk was loading what after doing a mkautoinstallcd. So, i just mounted things and started tracing things out.
The system I'm working on needs a pre-compiled (binary only) module loaded for the SATA drives. I'm using the one available for a RH9 2.4.20-8 kernel. Therefore the 'mkbootpackage' cmd-ln looks something like this,
mkbootpackage \ --verbose \ --kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 \ --module-dir /lib/modules/2.4.20-8 \ --modules "sii6512" \ --flavor "rh9-sii6512" \ --from-flavor "standard"
I believe this is correct usage and as best I can tell should do what I want -- use a distro kernel, add my module to initrd.img and get all the SI/BOEL stuffo in there too. However, the usage info for '--modules' seems a bit odd? http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/systemimager/systemimager/sbin/mkbootpackage?content-type=text%2Fplain&rev=1.8
"... You need not include any disk related drivers, unless they are required to read a local.cfg file from the floppy or hard disk drive(s)."
If I follow things, you'd need this SATA disk driver (sii6512.o) in order to actually write to the disk when running the
load_my_modules run_autoinstall_script
routines from the 'etc/init.d/rcS' (in autoinstall's initrd.img, which is inside the CD/boot/siboot.img).
Otherwise, there's no way to get the module into the mix, since it's not compiled into the kernel....right? So, am I using this correctly and the above usage info is just misleading, or am I smoking crack?
Crack.
That's gotta be it. ;-)
Seriously though, there is some magic that isn't obvious. Modules can potentially be loaded at two different times. One is from the initrd.img, the other it after the boel binaries tarball has been pulled over (it contains _all_ the kernel's modules).
Any modules needed for the client's hardware that were not loaded from the initrd, and auto-discovered (courtesy of the "discover" tool), and loaded. This is all prior to attempting to partition/format/install to the client's disk(s).
Therefore, it is _only_ in the case that you want your client to read it's configuration information from the local disk, that you would need to include the driver for it here.
Cheers,
-Brian
FWIW, 'mkautoinstallcd' seems to want a file name "kernel" and 'mkbootpackage' just copies whatever file you feed it, so you need a symlink or rename for it to work.
Thanks!
-Brian
Thanks, --tjn
PS Note, I've also built from systemimager-3.0.1 source but am not confident about this route b/c of the pre-compiled SATA driver (no source) wouldn't load cleanly, haven't tried an 'insmod --force' yet, shifted to mkbootpackage.
_________________________________________________________________________ Thomas Naughton [EMAIL PROTECTED] Research Associate (865) 576-4184
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