SGI TPL (Linux: Developer/LX_DevDriver_PG - Chapter 12. Building Linux Kernels and Modules)

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Linux Device Driver Programmer's Guide,Porting to SGI Altix Systems
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Chapter 12. Building Linux Kernels and Modules
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Chapter 12. Building Linux Kernels and Modules

This section provides the location of the default configuration file, steps for building and booting a new Linux kernel on an SGI Altix series system, and steps for rebuilding a module. The commands and procedures for recompiling or rebuilding the Linux kernel are the same as for any other Linux platform.

Default Configuration File

The configuration file used to build the Linux kernel that is running on your SGI Altix series system is /usr/src/linux/arch/ia64/sn/configs/defconfig-sn2. To build a new kernel, use this configuration file as a base. It should not be necessary to make a new configuration file.

Building a New Linux Kernel

The steps for building a new kernel are as follows:

cd /usr/src/linux
make clean
cp configs/kernel-2.4.21-ia64.config .config
make oldconfig
make dep
make
make compressed

Booting Your New Linux Kernel

To boot your new Linux kernel, copy or move vmlinuz to /boot/efi/efi/sgi and reboot, as follows:

% cp arch/ia64/boot/vmlinuz /boot/efi/efi/sgi/my_vmlinuz reboot

Enter the following at the EFI shell command:

elilo my_vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 console=ttyS0

For more details regarding rebuilding the Linux kernel, see the /usr/src/linux/README file . This file also contains information on how to rebuild a new Linux kernel from sources other than those released by SGI that you have downloaded on your machine.

Rebuilding Modules

To rebuild the modules on your system, use the following commands:

cd /usr/src/linux
make modules

Example output:

make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib'
make -C zlib_deflate modules
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib/zlib_deflate'
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes 
-Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -g -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe 
-ffixed-r13 -mfixed-range=f10-f15,f32-f127 -falign-functions=32 -DSGI_SN_EXECUTABLE_STACKS 
-DBRINGUP -DBRINGUP2 -DMODULE -I /usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib/zlib_deflate -nostdinc 
-iwithprefix include -DKBUILD_BASENAME=deflate  -c -o deflate.o deflate.c

gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes 
-Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -g -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe  
-ffixed-r13 -mfixed-range=f10-f15,f32-f127 -falign-functions=32 -DSGI_SN_EXECUTABLE_STACKS 
-DBRINGUP -DBRINGUP2 -DMODULE -I /usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib/zlib_deflate -nostdinc 
-iwithprefix include -DKBUILD_BASENAME=deftree -c -o deftree.o deftree.c

gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes 
-Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -g -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe  
-ffixed-r13 -mfixed-range=f10-f15,f32-f127 -falign-functions=32 -DSGI_SN_EXECUTABLE_STACKS 
-DBRINGUP -DBRINGUP2 -DMODULE -I /usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib/zlib_deflate -nostdinc 
-iwithprefix include -DKBUILD_BASENAME=deflate_syms -DEXPORT_SYMTAB -c deflate_syms.c 
rm -f zlib_deflate.o 
ld  -r -o zlib_deflate.o deflate.o deftree.o deflate_syms.o

To install these newly created modules, use the following command:

make modules_install

The following step copies all the newly created modules to the directory:

/lib/modules/[kernel_version]/

Example output:

make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib'
make -C zlib_deflate modules_install
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib/zlib_deflate'
mkdir -p /lib/modules/2.4.20-sgi220a31/kernel/lib/zlib_deflate/
cp zlib_deflate.o /lib/modules/2.4.20-sgi220a31/kernel/lib/zlib_deflate/
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib/zlib_deflate'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/lib'

Note: The SGI Altix series system might come with binary-only release modules. These modules cannot be remade on your machine.

For more information on Linux kernel modules, see the following link: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Module-HOWTO/

Downloading SGI Altix RPMs

Open source rpms for the SGI Altix system can be downloaded from oss.sgi.com. These rpms can be downloaded with your favorite web browser at the following location:

http://oss.sgi.com/projects/sgi_propack/

You can also download these sources via Anonymous FTP, as follows:

% ftp oss.sgi.com
% cd /projects/sgi_propack/download/2.2
% get kernel-2.4.20-sgi220rp03062622_10017.src.rpm

If you have the correct directories and also root access set up to manage Red Hat rpms, you can use the various rpm commands to retrieve and build the sources from the source rpm. Otherwise, you can use the following procedure:

Use the rpm2cpio command to extract the files from the rpm.
Use the unzip(1) command to unzip the tar file.
Use the tar(1) command to untar the tar file.
Perform your build.

The following provides a session trace of the above steps:

$ rpm2cpio kernel-2.4.21-sgi303r2.src.rpm | cpio -iduvm
kernel-2.4.21-ia64.config
linux-2.4.21.tar.gz
linux-common.spec
linux-sn2.spec
module-info
77535 blocks
$ gzip -dc 
$ gzip -dc

You can perform this task on any platform with Itanium processors.

Building New Modules

If you are writing and developing modules for the SGI Altix system on either an Altix platform or any other platform with Itanium processors, you can use the steps outlined in “Downloading SGI Altix RPMs” to download the kernel sources onto your platform and then build and test your modules. You may consider using the following procedure to build your modules, (The following procedures assumes that you are using /usr/src/example as the directory of your module development) as follows:

Create a Makefile for 2.4 similar to the following:

obj-m += module_example.o
include $(TOPDIR)/Rules.make

Run the make(1) command from any location, as follows:

% make -C /usr/src/linux-2.4.20 SUBDIRS=/usr/src/example modules

An example session is, as follows:

Example session:

[root@rappel linux-2.4.20]# make -C /usr/src/linux-2.4.20 SUBDIRS=/usr/src/example modules
make: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20'
make -C  /usr/src/example CFLAGS="-D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -W
no-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -g -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe  -ffixed-r13 -mfixed-range=
f10-f15,f32-f127 -falign-functions=32 -DMODULE" MAKING_MODULES=1 modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/example'
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-a
liasing -fno-common -g -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe  -ffixed-r13 -mfixed-range=f10-f15,f32-f127 -falign-funct
ions=32 -DMODULE  -nostdinc -iwithprefix include -DKBUILD_BASENAME=module_example  -c -o module_example.o m
odule_example.c
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/example'
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.4.20'

[root@rappel linux-2.4.20]# ls /usr/src/example
Makefile  module_example.c  module_example.o

Note: SGI strongly recommends that you use this method because it ensures that all the appropriate defines and flags are used to build your modules.

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Chapter 11. Time Management		Appendix A. Memory Operation Ordering on SGI Altix Systems

Linux Device Driver Programmer's Guide,Porting to SGI Altix Systems
(document number: 007-4520-007 / published: 2008-09-24)    table of contents  |  additional info  |  download

    Front Matter
    New Features in This Guide
    About This Guide
    Chapter 1. Introduction
    Chapter 2. Architecture
    Chapter 3. PCI-X Device Attachment
    Chapter 4. PCI System Initialization
    Chapter 5. Finding Your PCI Device
    Chapter 6. PCI/PCI-X Configuration Space
    Chapter 7. PCI-X I/O and Memory Resources
    Chapter 8. PCI-X Interrupt Mechanism
    Chapter 9. PCI-X Direct Memory Access (DMA)
    Chapter 10. Device Driver Memory Usage
    Chapter 11. Time Management
    Chapter 12. Building Linux Kernels and Modules
    Appendix A. Memory Operation Ordering on SGI Altix Systems
    Index

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