Re: [gentoo-user] Do I require static nodes?

[Samuli Suominen <ssuominen@gentoo.org>]

On 27/11/13 12:22, Daniel Pielmeier wrote:
> 2013/11/27 Chris Stankevitz <chrisstankevitz@gmail.com
> <mailto:chrisstankevitz@gmail.com>>
>
>     Hello,
>
>     Portage recently told me this:
>
>      * You need to add kmod-static-nodes to the sysinit runlevel for
>      * kernel modules to have required static nodes!
>      * Run this command:
>      * rc-update add kmod-static-nodes sysinit
>
>     Will you please help me parse this statement?
>
>     Interpretation A:
>      * You need to add kmod-static-nodes to the sysinit runlevel
>
>     Interpretation B:
>      * If your kernel modules require static nodes, then you need to add
>      * kmod-static-nodes to the sysinit runlevel
>
>     Q1: Is it A or B (or C...)?
>
>     Q2: If it's B, then how do I determine whether or not my kernel
>     modules require static nodes?
>
>
> I also had trouble to interpret the message and because I was lazy I
> just added the kmod-static-nodes to the sysinit runlevel.
>
> After searching a bit I found that this was added due to bug #477856,
> but reading this as well as the release notes for kmod I am still not
> sure if this is needed in any case or just if there is a modular
> kernel etc.
>
> I am cc'ing one of the kmod maintainers maybe he can explain what is
> meant exactly.
>
> @Samuli: You have added the elog message to kmod-14-r1. Can you please
> give some more information about when kmod-static-nodes is required to
> be in the sysinit runlevel? Thanks in advance.
>

If you have, for example, "fuse" as a kernel module, then you need
kmod-static-nodes in sysinit to get /dev/fuse and such
Also, if you have ALSA drivers like "snd_seq_..." as modules, then you
need kmod-static-nodes in sysinit to get /dev/snd/seq to appear with
correct permissions

So leaving kmod-static-nodes out, on a system that has modules, can be
dangerous because it's very hard to know offhand whatkind of /dev
entries the
modules will create, those two I mentioned are just the 2 most common
cases, there are hundreds of cases more

Adding it to sysinit runlevel on a system with modules is recommended
(if not even mandatory)

And adding it to sysinit runlevel on a system with NO modules whatsoever
is also safe, then the init script will simply do nothing and you can
ignore anykind
of [!!] it might print on boot

So you can leave it out, if you use static kernel with NO modules
whatsover, if you REALLY want to supress one [!!] cosmetic error during
boot that takes like
no time whatsover to the boot time

So basically... just always add it... It's automatically added for new
installs already...