[OpenAFS-devel] Error in building openafs on ubuntu 22.04

[Benjamin Kaduk]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2025 at 04:15:31PM +0530, Satyarth Singh wrote:
> Respected sir/madam,
> I tried building the source code of openafs from the git repo and also
> downloaded the latest stable release of openafs. I am using ubuntu 22.04
> and kernel version is 6.8.0-52-generic.
>  But I run into a number of errors everytime which I keep trying to
> resolve.

Generally it's helpful to post the actual errors encountered (but see below
for this particular case)

> I want to ask a few doubts just so that I know I am not doing anything
> wrong.
> 
> 1) the release note for the latest stable release says that support has
> been added for kernel 6.13. But does that mean it no longer supports older
> kernels? Should I download an older stable release based on .my kernel
> version?

Adding support for kernel 6.13 does not remove support for older kernels.
The latest OpenAFS should be able to work on all recent kernels.

> 2) is it recommended that I downgrade my kernel and try an older kernel?

Sometimes that is a useful interim measure when the packaged version of
OpenAFS has not caught up to the latest packaged kernel, but it should not
be a long-term solution.

> 3) I first tried installing openafs via apt package manager But i found out
> that it older openafs version which does not support latest kernel modules.

The way that Ubuntu package management works in the Ubuntu base system is
challenging for a kernel module like OpenAFS.  However, the Ubuntu PPA
mechanism does provide a convenient way to stay up to date; most sites
running OpenAFS on Ubuntu use the "OpenAFS stable releases" PPA:
https://launchpad.net/~openafs/+archive/ubuntu/stable  There are
instructions on that page for "adding this PPA to your system"

-Ben Kaduk