tjh.dev
Linux kernel release 3.x <http://kernel.org/>
These are the release notes for Linux version 3. Read them carefully,
as they tell you what this is all about, explain how to install the
kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong.
WHAT IS LINUX?
Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by
Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across
the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.
It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix,
including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand
loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory management,
and multistack networking including IPv4 and IPv6.
It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
accompanying COPYING file for more details.
ON WHAT HARDWARE DOES IT RUN?
Although originally developed first for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher),
today Linux also runs on (at least) the Compaq Alpha AXP, Sun SPARC and
UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, PowerPC64, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, Cell,
IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64, DEC VAX, AMD x86-64, AXIS CRIS,
Xtensa, Tilera TILE, AVR32 and Renesas M32R architectures.
Linux is easily portable to most general-purpose 32- or 64-bit architectures
as long as they have a paged memory management unit (PMMU) and a port of the
GNU C compiler (gcc) (part of The GNU Compiler Collection, GCC). Linux has
also been ported to a number of architectures without a PMMU, although
functionality is then obviously somewhat limited.
Linux has also been ported to itself. You can now run the kernel as a
userspace application - this is called UserMode Linux (UML).
DOCUMENTATION:
- There is a lot of documentation available both in electronic form on
the Internet and in books, both Linux-specific and pertaining to
general UNIX questions. I'd recommend looking into the documentation
subdirectories on any Linux FTP site for the LDP (Linux Documentation
Project) books. This README is not meant to be documentation on the
system: there are much better sources available.
- There are various README files in the Documentation/ subdirectory:
these typically contain kernel-specific installation notes for some
drivers for example. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what
is contained in each file. Please read the Changes file, as it
contains information about the problems, which may result by upgrading
your kernel.
- The Documentation/DocBook/ subdirectory contains several guides for
kernel developers and users. These guides can be rendered in a
number of formats: PostScript (.ps), PDF, HTML, & man-pages, among others.
After installation, "make psdocs", "make pdfdocs", "make htmldocs",
or "make mandocs" will render the documentation in the requested format.
INSTALLING the kernel source:
- If you install the full sources, put the kernel tarball in a
directory where you have permissions (eg. your home directory) and
unpack it:
gzip -cd linux-3.X.tar.gz | tar xvf -
or
bzip2 -dc linux-3.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
Replace "X" with the version number of the latest kernel.
Do NOT use the /usr/src/linux area! This area has a (usually
incomplete) set of kernel headers that are used by the library header
files. They should match the library, and not get messed up by
whatever the kernel-du-jour happens to be.
- You can also upgrade between 3.x releases by patching. Patches are
distributed in the traditional gzip and the newer bzip2 format. To
install by patching, get all the newer patch files, enter the
top level directory of the kernel source (linux-3.X) and execute:
gzip -cd ../patch-3.x.gz | patch -p1
or
bzip2 -dc ../patch-3.x.bz2 | patch -p1
Replace "x" for all versions bigger than the version "X" of your current
source tree, _in_order_, and you should be ok. You may want to remove
the backup files (some-file-name~ or some-file-name.orig), and make sure
that there are no failed patches (some-file-name# or some-file-name.rej).
If there are, either you or I have made a mistake.
Unlike patches for the 3.x kernels, patches for the 3.x.y kernels
(also known as the -stable kernels) are not incremental but instead apply
directly to the base 3.x kernel. For example, if your base kernel is 3.0
and you want to apply the 3.0.3 patch, you must not first apply the 3.0.1
and 3.0.2 patches. Similarly, if you are running kernel version 3.0.2 and
want to jump to 3.0.3, you must first reverse the 3.0.2 patch (that is,
patch -R) _before_ applying the 3.0.3 patch. You can read more on this in
Documentation/applying-patches.txt
Alternatively, the script patch-kernel can be used to automate this
process. It determines the current kernel version and applies any
patches found.
linux/scripts/patch-kernel linux
The first argument in the command above is the location of the
kernel source. Patches are applied from the current directory, but
an alternative directory can be specified as the second argument.
- Make sure you have no stale .o files and dependencies lying around:
cd linux
make mrproper
You should now have the sources correctly installed.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Compiling and running the 3.x kernels requires up-to-date
versions of various software packages. Consult
Documentation/Changes for the minimum version numbers required
and how to get updates for these packages. Beware that using
excessively old versions of these packages can cause indirect
errors that are very difficult to track down, so don't assume that
you can just update packages when obvious problems arise during
build or operation.
BUILD directory for the kernel:
When compiling the kernel, all output files will per default be
stored together with the kernel source code.
Using the option "make O=output/dir" allow you to specify an alternate
place for the output files (including .config).
Example:
kernel source code: /usr/src/linux-3.X
build directory: /home/name/build/kernel
To configure and build the kernel, use:
cd /usr/src/linux-3.X
make O=/home/name/build/kernel menuconfig
make O=/home/name/build/kernel
sudo make O=/home/name/build/kernel modules_install install
Please note: If the 'O=output/dir' option is used, then it must be
used for all invocations of make.
CONFIGURING the kernel:
Do not skip this step even if you are only upgrading one minor
version. New configuration options are added in each release, and
odd problems will turn up if the configuration files are not set up
as expected. If you want to carry your existing configuration to a
new version with minimal work, use "make oldconfig", which will
only ask you for the answers to new questions.
- Alternative configuration commands are:
"make config" Plain text interface.
"make menuconfig" Text based color menus, radiolists & dialogs.
"make nconfig" Enhanced text based color menus.
"make xconfig" X windows (Qt) based configuration tool.
"make gconfig" X windows (Gtk) based configuration tool.
"make oldconfig" Default all questions based on the contents of
your existing ./.config file and asking about
new config symbols.
"make silentoldconfig"
Like above, but avoids cluttering the screen
with questions already answered.
Additionally updates the dependencies.
"make olddefconfig"
Like above, but sets new symbols to their default
values without prompting.
"make defconfig" Create a ./.config file by using the default
symbol values from either arch/$ARCH/defconfig
or arch/$ARCH/configs/${PLATFORM}_defconfig,
depending on the architecture.
"make ${PLATFORM}_defconfig"
Create a ./.config file by using the default
symbol values from
arch/$ARCH/configs/${PLATFORM}_defconfig.
Use "make help" to get a list of all available
platforms of your architecture.
"make allyesconfig"
Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
values to 'y' as much as possible.
"make allmodconfig"
Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
values to 'm' as much as possible.
"make allnoconfig" Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
values to 'n' as much as possible.
"make randconfig" Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
values to random values.
"make localmodconfig" Create a config based on current config and
loaded modules (lsmod). Disables any module
option that is not needed for the loaded modules.
To create a localmodconfig for another machine,
store the lsmod of that machine into a file
and pass it in as a LSMOD parameter.
target$ lsmod > /tmp/mylsmod
target$ scp /tmp/mylsmod host:/tmp
host$ make LSMOD=/tmp/mylsmod localmodconfig
The above also works when cross compiling.
"make localyesconfig" Similar to localmodconfig, except it will convert
all module options to built in (=y) options.
You can find more information on using the Linux kernel config tools
in Documentation/kbuild/kconfig.txt.
- NOTES on "make config":
- Having unnecessary drivers will make the kernel bigger, and can
under some circumstances lead to problems: probing for a
nonexistent controller card may confuse your other controllers
- Compiling the kernel with "Processor type" set higher than 386
will result in a kernel that does NOT work on a 386. The
kernel will detect this on bootup, and give up.
- A kernel with math-emulation compiled in will still use the
coprocessor if one is present: the math emulation will just
never get used in that case. The kernel will be slightly larger,
but will work on different machines regardless of whether they
have a math coprocessor or not.
- The "kernel hacking" configuration details usually result in a
bigger or slower kernel (or both), and can even make the kernel
less stable by configuring some routines to actively try to
break bad code to find kernel problems (kmalloc()). Thus you
should probably answer 'n' to the questions for "development",
"experimental", or "debugging" features.
COMPILING the kernel:
- Make sure you have at least gcc 3.2 available.
For more information, refer to Documentation/Changes.
Please note that you can still run a.out user programs with this kernel.
- Do a "make" to create a compressed kernel image. It is also
possible to do "make install" if you have lilo installed to suit the
kernel makefiles, but you may want to check your particular lilo setup first.
To do the actual install, you have to be root, but none of the normal
build should require that. Don't take the name of root in vain.
- If you configured any of the parts of the kernel as `modules', you
will also have to do "make modules_install".
- Verbose kernel compile/build output:
Normally, the kernel build system runs in a fairly quiet mode (but not
totally silent). However, sometimes you or other kernel developers need
to see compile, link, or other commands exactly as they are executed.
For this, use "verbose" build mode. This is done by inserting
"V=1" in the "make" command. E.g.:
make V=1 all
To have the build system also tell the reason for the rebuild of each
target, use "V=2". The default is "V=0".
- Keep a backup kernel handy in case something goes wrong. This is
especially true for the development releases, since each new release
contains new code which has not been debugged. Make sure you keep a
backup of the modules corresponding to that kernel, as well. If you
are installing a new kernel with the same version number as your
working kernel, make a backup of your modules directory before you
do a "make modules_install".
Alternatively, before compiling, use the kernel config option
"LOCALVERSION" to append a unique suffix to the regular kernel version.
LOCALVERSION can be set in the "General Setup" menu.
- In order to boot your new kernel, you'll need to copy the kernel
image (e.g. .../linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage after compilation)
to the place where your regular bootable kernel is found.
- Booting a kernel directly from a floppy without the assistance of a
bootloader such as LILO, is no longer supported.
If you boot Linux from the hard drive, chances are you use LILO, which
uses the kernel image as specified in the file /etc/lilo.conf. The
kernel image file is usually /vmlinuz, /boot/vmlinuz, /bzImage or
/boot/bzImage. To use the new kernel, save a copy of the old image
and copy the new image over the old one. Then, you MUST RERUN LILO
to update the loading map!! If you don't, you won't be able to boot
the new kernel image.
Reinstalling LILO is usually a matter of running /sbin/lilo.
You may wish to edit /etc/lilo.conf to specify an entry for your
old kernel image (say, /vmlinux.old) in case the new one does not
work. See the LILO docs for more information.
After reinstalling LILO, you should be all set. Shutdown the system,
reboot, and enjoy!
If you ever need to change the default root device, video mode,
ramdisk size, etc. in the kernel image, use the 'rdev' program (or
alternatively the LILO boot options when appropriate). No need to
recompile the kernel to change these parameters.
- Reboot with the new kernel and enjoy.
IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG:
- If you have problems that seem to be due to kernel bugs, please check
the file MAINTAINERS to see if there is a particular person associated
with the part of the kernel that you are having trouble with. If there
isn't anyone listed there, then the second best thing is to mail
them to me (torvalds@linux-foundation.org), and possibly to any other
relevant mailing-list or to the newsgroup.
- In all bug-reports, *please* tell what kernel you are talking about,
how to duplicate the problem, and what your setup is (use your common
sense). If the problem is new, tell me so, and if the problem is
old, please try to tell me when you first noticed it.
- If the bug results in a message like
unable to handle kernel paging request at address C0000010
Oops: 0002
EIP: 0010:XXXXXXXX
eax: xxxxxxxx ebx: xxxxxxxx ecx: xxxxxxxx edx: xxxxxxxx
esi: xxxxxxxx edi: xxxxxxxx ebp: xxxxxxxx
ds: xxxx es: xxxx fs: xxxx gs: xxxx
Pid: xx, process nr: xx
xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
or similar kernel debugging information on your screen or in your
system log, please duplicate it *exactly*. The dump may look
incomprehensible to you, but it does contain information that may
help debugging the problem. The text above the dump is also
important: it tells something about why the kernel dumped code (in
the above example, it's due to a bad kernel pointer). More information
on making sense of the dump is in Documentation/oops-tracing.txt
- If you compiled the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS you can send the dump
as is, otherwise you will have to use the "ksymoops" program to make
sense of the dump (but compiling with CONFIG_KALLSYMS is usually preferred).
This utility can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.<country>.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/ .
Alternatively, you can do the dump lookup by hand:
- In debugging dumps like the above, it helps enormously if you can
look up what the EIP value means. The hex value as such doesn't help
me or anybody else very much: it will depend on your particular
kernel setup. What you should do is take the hex value from the EIP
line (ignore the "0010:"), and look it up in the kernel namelist to
see which kernel function contains the offending address.
To find out the kernel function name, you'll need to find the system
binary associated with the kernel that exhibited the symptom. This is
the file 'linux/vmlinux'. To extract the namelist and match it against
the EIP from the kernel crash, do:
nm vmlinux | sort | less
This will give you a list of kernel addresses sorted in ascending
order, from which it is simple to find the function that contains the
offending address. Note that the address given by the kernel
debugging messages will not necessarily match exactly with the
function addresses (in fact, that is very unlikely), so you can't
just 'grep' the list: the list will, however, give you the starting
point of each kernel function, so by looking for the function that
has a starting address lower than the one you are searching for but
is followed by a function with a higher address you will find the one
you want. In fact, it may be a good idea to include a bit of
"context" in your problem report, giving a few lines around the
interesting one.
If you for some reason cannot do the above (you have a pre-compiled
kernel image or similar), telling me as much about your setup as
possible will help. Please read the REPORTING-BUGS document for details.
- Alternatively, you can use gdb on a running kernel. (read-only; i.e. you
cannot change values or set break points.) To do this, first compile the
kernel with -g; edit arch/i386/Makefile appropriately, then do a "make
clean". You'll also need to enable CONFIG_PROC_FS (via "make config").
After you've rebooted with the new kernel, do "gdb vmlinux /proc/kcore".
You can now use all the usual gdb commands. The command to look up the
point where your system crashed is "l *0xXXXXXXXX". (Replace the XXXes
with the EIP value.)
gdb'ing a non-running kernel currently fails because gdb (wrongly)
disregards the starting offset for which the kernel is compiled.
Linux kernel mirror (for testing)
git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
kernel
os
linux
code
Clone this repository
https://tangled.org/tjh.dev/kernel
git@gordian.tjh.dev:tjh.dev/kernel
For self-hosted knots, clone URLs may differ based on your setup.
Pull another powerpc fix from Benjamin Herrenschmidt:
"I mentioned that while we had fixed the kernel crashes, EEH error
recovery didn't always recover... It appears that I had a fix for
that already in powerpc-next (with a stable CC).
I cherry-picked it today and did a few tests and it seems that things
now work quite well. The patch is also pretty simple, so I see no
reason to wait before merging it."
* 'merge' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/benh/powerpc:
powerpc/eeh: Fix fetching bus for single-dev-PE
Pull SCSI fixes from James Bottomley:
"This is a set of seven bug fixes. Several fcoe fixes for locking
problems, initiator issues and a VLAN API change, all of which could
eventually lead to data corruption, one fix for a qla2xxx locking
problem which could lead to multiple completions of the same request
(and subsequent data corruption) and a use after free in the ipr
driver. Plus one minor MAINTAINERS file update"
(only six bugfixes in this pull, since I had already pulled the fcoe API
fix directly from Robert Love)
* tag 'scsi-fixes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jejb/scsi:
[SCSI] ipr: Avoid target_destroy accessing memory after it was freed
[SCSI] qla2xxx: Fix for locking issue between driver ISR and mailbox routines
MAINTAINERS: Fix fcoe mailing list
libfc: extend ex_lock to protect all of fc_seq_send
libfc: Correct check for initiator role
libfcoe: Fix Conflicting FCFs issue in the fabric
While running Linux as guest on top of phyp, we possiblly have
PE that includes single PCI device. However, we didn't return
its PCI bus correctly and it leads to failure on recovery from
EEH errors for single-dev-PE. The patch fixes the issue.
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # v3.7+
Cc: Steve Best <sbest@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Gavin Shan <shangw@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
Pull powerpc fixes from Ben Herrenschmidt:
"We discovered some breakage in our "EEH" (PCI Error Handling) code
while doing error injection, due to a couple of regressions. One of
them is due to a patch (37f02195bee9 "powerpc/pci: fix PCI-e devices
rescan issue on powerpc platform") that, in hindsight, I shouldn't
have merged considering that it caused more problems than it solved.
Please pull those two fixes. One for a simple EEH address cache
initialization issue. The other one is a patch from Guenter that I
had originally planned to put in 3.11 but which happens to also fix
that other regression (a kernel oops during EEH error handling and
possibly hotplug).
With those two, the couple of test machines I've hammered with error
injection are remaining up now. EEH appears to still fail to recover
on some devices, so there is another problem that Gavin is looking
into but at least it's no longer crashing the kernel."
* 'merge' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/benh/powerpc:
powerpc/pci: Improve device hotplug initialization
powerpc/eeh: Add eeh_dev to the cache during boot
This patch fixes a critical bug that was introduced in 3.9
related to VLAN tagging FCoE frames.
Due to recent changes and expecations of proper cpu bindings, there are
now cases for many of the in-tree devicetrees where a WARN() will hit
on boot due to badly formatted /cpus nodes.
Downgrade this to a pr_warn() to be less alarmist, since it's not a
new problem.
Tested on Arndale, Cubox, Seaboard and Panda ES. Panda hits the WARN
without this, the others do not.
Acked-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@arm.linux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Commit 37f02195b (powerpc/pci: fix PCI-e devices rescan issue on powerpc
platform) fixes a problem with interrupt and DMA initialization on hot
plugged devices. With this commit, interrupt and DMA initialization for
hot plugged devices is handled in the pci device enable function.
This approach has a couple of drawbacks. First, it creates two code paths
for device initialization, one for hot plugged devices and another for devices
known during the initial PCI scan. Second, the initialization code for hot
plugged devices is only called when the device is enabled, ie typically
in the probe function. Also, the platform specific setup code is called each
time pci_enable_device() is called, not only once during device discovery,
meaning it is actually called multiple times, once for devices discovered
during the initial scan and again each time a driver is re-loaded.
The visible result is that interrupt pins are only assigned to hot plugged
devices when the device driver is loaded. Effectively this changes the PCI
probe API, since pci_dev->irq and the device's dma configuration will now
only be valid after pci_enable() was called at least once. A more subtle
change is that platform specific PCI device setup is moved from device
discovery into the driver's probe function, more specifically into the
pci_enable_device() call.
To fix the inconsistencies, add new function pcibios_add_device.
Call pcibios_setup_device from pcibios_setup_bus_devices if device setup
is not complete, and from pcibios_add_device if bus setup is complete.
With this change, device setup code is moved back into device initialization,
and called exactly once for both static and hot plugged devices.
[ This also fixes a regression introduced by the above patch which
causes dev->irq to be overwritten under some cirumstances after
MSIs have been enabled for the device which leads to crashes due
to the MSI core "hijacking" dev->irq to store the base MSI number
and not the LSI. --BenH
]
Cc: Yuanquan Chen <Yuanquan.Chen@freescale.com>
Cc: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
Cc: Hiroo Matsumoto <matsumoto.hiroo@jp.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
3.10 fixes
fcoe_xmit was coded such that it would skip the vlan net device/layer
and instead set some vlan flags and transmit on the real net device.
The real net device has code that would add the vlan tag for fcoe skbs.
This avoids some extra processing for data frames and provides a small
performance improvement.
Since fcoe_xmit was not using the vlan net device, __vlan_put_tag
within the real net device's xmit routine was ultimately being
called to set the vlan tag.
With the below change the behavior of __vlan_put_tag changed slightly,
it now sets the skb->protocol = vlan_proto. vlan_proto was not a field
being set by fcoe_xmit, so the skb->protocol is now not being set to
ETH_P_8021Q, as it should be.
This patch converts fcoe_xmit to use the vlan_put_tag routine which
will tag the skb and fcoe will continue to transmit fcoe skbs on the
real net device.
For reference, the below change was the one that altered the
__vlan_put_tag behavior.
commit 86a9bad3ab6b6f858fd4443b48738cabbb6d094c
Author: Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>
Date: Fri Apr 19 02:04:30 2013 +0000
net: vlan: add protocol argument to packet tagging functions
Add a protocol argument to the VLAN packet tagging functions. In case of HW
tagging, we need that protocol available in the ndo_start_xmit functions,
so it is stored in a new field in the skb. The new field fits into a hole
(on 64 bit) and doesn't increase the sks's size.
Signed-off-by: Robert Love <robert.w.love@intel.com>
Acked-by: Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
Acked-by: John Fastabend <john.r.fastabend@intel.com>
Pull crypto fix from Herbert Xu:
"This fixes a crash in the crypto layer exposed by an SCTP test tool"
* git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6:
crypto: algboss - Hold ref count on larval
commit f8f7d63fd96ead101415a1302035137a866f8998 ("powerpc/eeh: Trace eeh
device from I/O cache") broke EEH on pseries for devices that were
present during boot and have not been hotplugged/DLPARed.
eeh_check_failure will get the eeh_dev from the cache, and will get
NULL. eeh_addr_cache_build adds the addresses to the cache, but eeh_dev
for the giving pci_device is not set yet. Just reordering the call to
eeh_addr_cache_insert_dev works fine. The ordering is similar to the one
in eeh_add_device_late.
Signed-off-by: Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo <cascardo@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Gavin Shan <shangw@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>
README