[OpenAFS] Building openafs 1.6.15 on old ("precise") kernels

[Sergio Gelato]

* John Tang Boyland [2015-11-09 07:22:20 -0600]:
> My speaking of "precise" was wrong.  Sorry for wasting people's time
> with that.  Since I wrote the email, I've been informed that the machine
> is running Debian Squeeze.  That is not supposed to EOL until 2/2016
> (according to my limited understanding), but if I understand you
> correctly openafs-1.6.15 doesn't work on this old kernel.

I didn't say that. (It may or may not be true: I haven't tested.) All I said
was that your kernel was old *for Ubuntu precise*. Debian squeeze (like
Ubuntu lucid) is another story.

> So: the advice is to upgrade the kernel.

No, the advice is to build .deb packages of OpenAFS for squeeze; either
version 1.6.15 or some older version with security patches (and any other
patches you are interested in) applied on top. Ben actually suggested the
version in wheezy-security as a starting point; that's indeed more likely
to backport cleanly to squeeze.

My suggestion to upgrade the kernel was based on your statement that the
system was running Ubuntu precise; it does not apply if you're running
squeeze.

>  Apparently that's not an
> option (on our end) until the semester break.  Meanwhile, I'll just try
> to stop using AFS on this machine.
> 
> Best regards,
> John
> 
> ] * John Tang Boyland [2015-11-05 20:57:10 -0600]:
> ] >    We're trying to update our "precise" ubuntu systems with
> ] > openafs-1.6.15. [...]
> ] > 
> ] >    I tried to build from source (./configure --with-linux-kernel-packaging)
> ] > with simple "make; make install".  The new kernel module
> ] > was placed in /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-amd64/extra/openafs/openafs.ko
> ] 
> ] 2.6.32 was the kernel for Ubuntu lucid (10.04); precise (12.04) uses
> ] kernel 3.2.0 (or newer, if you install one of the backported kernels from
> ] later releases; 3.13.0 would be the obvious choice at the moment). 10.04
> ] reached EOL (even for server installations) a few months ago, which means
> ] that the package repository may soon disappear from ftp.ubuntu.com. (It
> ] was still there a few minutes ago, though.) If you really need to continue
> ] supporting 10.04, make sure you've got your own mirror.
> ] 
> ] If you've been running precise with a lucid kernel, you may want to try
> ] upgrading the kernel.
> ] 
> ] > Are there some instructions I should be following rather than
> ] > http://wiki.openafs.org/HowToBuildOpenAFSFromSource/ ?
> ] 
> ] I'll second Ben Kaduk's suggestion to build the Debian packages. I normally
> ] use pbuilder so that there are no extraneous packages present during the
> ] build that could affect the output of ./configure, but if you don't have
> ] the time to set that up Ben's recipe will do. There may be issues with the
> ] version of debhelper (openafs 1.6.15 requires debhelper >= 9, Ubuntu lucid
> ] has version 7.4) but those can be solved. (I see I've got a lucid backport
> ] of debhelper 9.20120115ubuntu3 in my private repo; probably a trivial one.)
> ] Occasionally one may need to tweak a source package when backporting, but
> ] for openafs there is rarely much to do. Version 1.6.15-1 will build as is
> ] on Ubuntu trusty; I haven't had the need to try older releases.