[gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Florian Philipp]

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Hi list!

A quick question:

If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
...), are there issues I should be aware of?

Do I have to mask newer glibc-versions, newer kernel headers or some use
flags? What about the nptl use flag?

Thanks in advance!
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 26 March 2009 19:47:05 Florian Philipp wrote:
> Hi list!
>
> A quick question:
>
> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
> ...), 

Wow. That kernel is what 4? 5? years old

> are there issues I should be aware of?

Plenty. 

First off, udev is unlikely to work for a start, so you will either need to 
remember how we did it way bask in '05, or use a static /dev

I'm sure there are many more, I just can;t think of the details about the 
other points you raised.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thu, 2009-03-26 at 18:47 +0100, Florian Philipp wrote:
> Hi list!
> 
> A quick question:
> 
> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
> ...), are there issues I should be aware of?
> 
> Do I have to mask newer glibc-versions, newer kernel headers or some use
> flags? What about the nptl use flag?

The oldest supported (gentoo-sources) kernel in the portage tree is
2.6.16.  So there is the likelihood that anything that touches the
kernel or kernel headers (c library, device drivers, encryption
libraries, filesystems, device-mapper, udev/hotplug scripts) may have
compatibility issues.

OTOH if pull in a really old revision of the portage tree that has 2.6.9
and you never upgrade the tree then you should be fine ;-)

-a

Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Florian Philipp]

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Alan McKinnon schrieb:
> On Thursday 26 March 2009 19:47:05 Florian Philipp wrote:
>> Hi list!
>>
>> A quick question:
>>
>> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
>> ...), 
> 
> Wow. That kernel is what 4? 5? years old

Yep, I was surprised myself. It is a virtual machine (formerly SuSE).
Therefore I have no influence on the kernel. I'm wondering whether I'm
even safe when running such an antique system.
> 
>> are there issues I should be aware of?
> 
> Plenty. 
> 
> First off, udev is unlikely to work for a start, so you will either need to 
> remember how we did it way bask in '05, or use a static /dev

Hmm, maybe this is no issue in a v-server. God knows what happens in the
background. (Okay, okay, SOURCE knows what happens, too, but I'm
unwilling to read it ;) )
> 
> I'm sure there are many more, I just can;t think of the details about the 
> other points you raised.
> 

Well, I'll just try. In the worst case I'll ask whether I can pay for a
kernel update or a transfer to another host system.



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Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Florian Philipp]

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Albert Hopkins schrieb:
> On Thu, 2009-03-26 at 18:47 +0100, Florian Philipp wrote:
>> Hi list!
>>
>> A quick question:
>>
>> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
>> ...), are there issues I should be aware of?
>>
> OTOH if pull in a really old revision of the portage tree that has 2.6.9
> and you never upgrade the tree then you should be fine ;-)
> 

I don't think doing no updates whatsoever is a reasonable option for a
web server ;)



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Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 26 March 2009 20:41:38 Florian Philipp wrote:
> Alan McKinnon schrieb:
> > On Thursday 26 March 2009 19:47:05 Florian Philipp wrote:
> >> Hi list!
> >>
> >> A quick question:
> >>
> >> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
> >> ...),
> >
> > Wow. That kernel is what 4? 5? years old
>
> Yep, I was surprised myself. It is a virtual machine (formerly SuSE).
> Therefore I have no influence on the kernel. I'm wondering whether I'm
> even safe when running such an antique system.

What kind of vm? Considering the vintage, I'd guess an early vmware

The 2.6.9 machine - is that the host or guest?

About a year ago a company I worked for was consulted to maintain a hospital 
admin system running on SLES of about that era in a VM. We told them to 
upgrade or find somebody else. They went off on their merry way to find 
somebody else...

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Florian Philipp]

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Alan McKinnon schrieb:
> On Thursday 26 March 2009 20:41:38 Florian Philipp wrote:
>> Alan McKinnon schrieb:
>>> On Thursday 26 March 2009 19:47:05 Florian Philipp wrote:
>>>> Hi list!
>>>>
>>>> A quick question:
>>>>
>>>> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
>>>> ...),
>>> Wow. That kernel is what 4? 5? years old
>> Yep, I was surprised myself. It is a virtual machine (formerly SuSE).
>> Therefore I have no influence on the kernel. I'm wondering whether I'm
>> even safe when running such an antique system.
> 
> What kind of vm? Considering the vintage, I'd guess an early vmware
> 
> The 2.6.9 machine - is that the host or guest?

It's OpenVZ, therefore guest and host share one kernel.

> 
> About a year ago a company I worked for was consulted to maintain a hospital 
> admin system running on SLES of about that era in a VM. We told them to 
> upgrade or find somebody else. They went off on their merry way to find 
> somebody else...
> 

I'll ask them as soon as I know more about how Gentoo works on this.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 26 March 2009 21:30:57 Florian Philipp wrote:

> > About a year ago a company I worked for was consulted to maintain a
> > hospital admin system running on SLES of about that era in a VM. We told
> > them to upgrade or find somebody else. They went off on their merry way
> > to find somebody else...
>
> I'll ask them as soon as I know more about how Gentoo works on this.

You mentioned elsewhere in the thread "web server"

If that's the case, I'd be telling the hosting provider that 2004 called and 
they want their minutes back. Then I'd be looking for a different hosting 
provider.
-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Thursday 26 March 2009 21:30:57 Florian Philipp wrote:
> 
>>> About a year ago a company I worked for was consulted to maintain a
>>> hospital admin system running on SLES of about that era in a VM. We told
>>> them to upgrade or find somebody else. They went off on their merry way
>>> to find somebody else...
>> I'll ask them as soon as I know more about how Gentoo works on this.
> 
> You mentioned elsewhere in the thread "web server"
> 
> If that's the case, I'd be telling the hosting provider that 2004 called and 
> they want their minutes back. Then I'd be looking for a different hosting 
> provider.

If indeed they're running off 2004 software, I would be interested to 
know how many times people are defacing (or worse) sites hosted there :P

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Mike Kazantsev]

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On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:19:13 +0200
Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >
> > You mentioned elsewhere in the thread "web server"
> > 
> > If that's the case, I'd be telling the hosting provider that 2004 called and 
> > they want their minutes back. Then I'd be looking for a different hosting 
> > provider.
> 
> If indeed they're running off 2004 software, I would be interested to 
> know how many times people are defacing (or worse) sites hosted there :P

If the server itself is http-backend (with ssh forwarded, too), located
in dmz, what's the big deal?

You can have latest and fairly secure apache/lighttpd/nginx/whatever
out there, and, provided there are no holes in your scripts, the setup
should be fairly secure.
And that's probably most used line-of-defence on any web, since there's
nothing more important for webserver than scripts - if you have www, you
pretty much have it all.

-- 
Mike Kazantsev // fraggod.net

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Re: [gentoo-user] Compatibility with Kernel 2.6.9

[Florian Philipp]

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Florian Philipp schrieb:
> Hi list!
> 
> A quick question:
> 
> If i install Gentoo on a system with a kernel version 2.6.9 (don't ask
> ...), are there issues I should be aware of?
> 
> Do I have to mask newer glibc-versions, newer kernel headers or some use
> flags? What about the nptl use flag?
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> Florian Philipp
> 

Hi!

I just wanted to report back my experiences with this server:

So far everything is working :)

I could even create a basic shorewall setup. For this I needed to make
an empty /lib/modules/<kernel>/modules.dep file for the host's kernel.

OpenVPN works, too, but only over tun, not tap.

I'm using a 2008 profile, linux-headers-2.6.27-r2,
glibc-2.8_p20080602-r1 with no special use flags and baselayout-2.

I installed it using the stages here
http://bb.xnull.de/projects/gentoo/stages/
(there is a link to them in the official Gentoo OpenVZ Howto)
and the guide here
http://log.onthebrink.de/2008/04/gentoo-on-1-vserver.html

When anyone else wants to follow that guide, too: Don't forget to
unmount /repair/proc and /repair/dev manually or else your server will
completely stall when you try to finish repair mode (no ssh, no reboot,
you have to call Support).

Concerning the ancient kernel: I asked some other guys and everyone had
such an old kernel no matter who's their provider. Given that it is a
SuSE Enterprise Server, it is very good possible that they still get
maintenance (usually 5+ years, as far as I know).


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