[Web10g-user] O/S and kernel/patch versions

Kevin Kawaguchi ktkawaguchi at ucdavis.edu
Wed May 1 13:07:08 EDT 2013


Good Morning Aaron,

That is an interesting option that we should definitely consider.  I'll have to ask around and see if our folks would want to go with the latest 0.6.2 patch the 3.8 kernel on Fedora 18 or something in the RHEL/CentOS realm.

My $0.02 would probably to choose something that is in line with the long term plans and supportability.   This project is two or three years so banking on one Fedora release might be pushing the life span slightly.  However, this is research so bleeding edge may be perfectly appropriate.

I would appreciate gathering the packages so we are ready to go once the decision is made.  Our deadline to turn the server over is the end of May so we could potentially check both paths out, but our plates are already pretty full.  We have multiple new servers in the rack so parallel installation might be doable without eating up much more time.

Thanks!

Kevin
________________________________
From: Aaron Brown [aaron at internet2.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 4:53 AM
To: Kevin Kawaguchi
Cc: Tom Throckmorton; web10g-user at web10g.org; i2-perfsonar at internet2.edu
Subject: Re: [Web10g-user] O/S and kernel/patch versions

Hey Kevin,

There's actually interest in supporting web10g on RHEL6. I've got an SRPM for an older RH6 kernel version, along with an SRPM for the 2.0.4 version of the web10g userland. There's been an updated web10g patch, but I'm not sure it's been backported to the RH6 kernel.

If you'd be interested in testing it out, I can get you the existing kernel SRPM, and see whether the patch still applies to the newer RH6 kernel.

Cheers,
Aaron

On Apr 29, 2013, at 9:39 PM, Tom Throckmorton <throck at gmail.com<mailto:throck at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hello Kevin; cross-posting to perfsonar developers, and comments below...

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 6:46 PM, Kevin Kawaguchi <ktkawaguchi at ucdavis.edu<mailto:ktkawaguchi at ucdavis.edu>> wrote:
Good Afternoon Everybody,

We are about to build a web10g server for some researchers.  We are typically a RHEL/CentOS shop so kernel wise we would be behind the times on recent web10g patches.  As an example PerfSonar is based on CentOS and has a kernel version of something like 2.6.32-358 while the web10g patches are way into the 3.x (and the oldest web10g patch is 2.6.38).

It looks like the best fit for a distro would be Fedora 18 as it is still RH and uses the 3.6 kernel train based upon this wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fedora_versions#Version_history


FWIW, Fedora 17/18 are currently shipping 3.8; the 0.6.2 patch is for 3.6.0-3.8.0, so should still work with either of those.

We are proposing:
1. install FC 18
2. d/l base kernel.org<http://kernel.org/> 3.6.0-ish source
3. d/l web10g 0.6.2 or newer patch
4. figure out where patch applies in kernel.org<http://kernel.org/> source
5. d/l fedora 3.6.0-ish kernel source
6. modify web10g 0.6.2 patch into fedora source
7. compile new fedora source based patched kernel and cross fingers

You can probably omit step #2 (unless you are really into reading kernel source); the comparison that is most important is the web10g patch to the kernel source for your compilation target.


I know documentation says that a raw ".0" kernel.org<http://kernel.org/> source is the supported method and that using other sources *may* work, but we are thinking it may pay off to use distro source to keep things in line with what is expected and configured in the distro.  On this path, are there any recommendations or experiences that would give this the best chance to pay off with a reasonably reliable system for our researchers?

Have other folks done anything like this successfully?

I've done this with web100, as well as mixing distro + upstream distro kernel, but have not w/ the web10g patchset.  Regardless of the patch, starting with and patching a kernel source and version that matched the distro was the best combination for me, in terms of things working and overall stability, whether using Fedora or CentOS.

You have a few other things to consider, like how you're going to maintain updates.  I encourage you to look at mock* for rebuilding your kernel package; the up-front investment will pay off if you're intending to use these systems for a while, and you'll also get to uncross your fingers at step #7 ;-)

-tt

* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Projects/Mock


What are the plans with respect to working with the PerfSonar/NDT/NPAD folks especially since they are Cent based?  I understand a patch for 2.6.32-358 would seem like a step backwards.

Thank You!

Kevin Kawaguchi
UCDavis Network Operations Center

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