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2 <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
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4 <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
8 <sect1 id="ch-bootable-kernel" role="wrap">
9 <?dbhtml filename="kernel.html"?>
11 <sect1info condition="script">
12 <productname>linux</productname>
13 <productnumber>&linux-version;</productnumber>
14 <address>&linux-url;</address>
17 <title>Linux-&linux-version;</title>
19 <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-kernel">
20 <primary sortas="a-Linux">Linux</primary>
23 <sect2 role="package">
26 <para>The Linux package contains the Linux kernel.</para>
29 <segtitle>&buildtime;</segtitle>
30 <segtitle>&diskspace;</segtitle>
33 <seg>&linux-ch8-sbu;</seg>
34 <seg>&linux-ch8-du;</seg>
40 <sect2 role="installation">
41 <title>Installation of the kernel</title>
43 <para>Building the kernel involves a few steps—configuration,
44 compilation, and installation. Read the <filename>README</filename> file
45 in the kernel source tree for alternative methods to the way this book
46 configures the kernel.</para>
48 <para>Prepare for compilation by running the following command:</para>
50 <screen><userinput remap="pre">make mrproper</userinput></screen>
52 <para>This ensures that the kernel tree is absolutely clean. The
53 kernel team recommends that this command be issued prior to each
54 kernel compilation. Do not rely on the source tree being clean after
57 <!-- Support for compiling a keymap into the kernel is deliberately removed -->
59 <para>Configure the kernel via a menu-driven interface. For general
60 information on kernel configuration see <ulink
61 url="&hints-root;kernel-configuration.txt"/>. BLFS has some information
62 regarding particular kernel configuration requirements of packages outside
64 url="&blfs-book;longindex.html#kernel-config-index"/>. Additional
65 information about configuring and building the kernel can be found at
66 <ulink url="http://www.kroah.com/lkn/"/> </para>
70 <para>A good starting place for setting up the kernel configuration is to
71 run <command>make defconfig</command>. This will set the base
72 configuration to a good state that takes your current system architecture
75 <para>Be sure to enable or disable following features or the system might
76 not work correctly or boot at all:</para>
78 <screen role="nodump" revision="sysv">
79 Device Drivers --->
80 Generic Driver Options --->
81 [ ] Support for uevent helper [CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER]
82 [*] Maintain a devtmpfs filesystem to mount at /dev [CONFIG_DEVTMPFS]</screen>
84 <screen role="nodump" revision="systemd">
86 [ ] Enable deprecated sysfs features to support old userspace tools [CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED]
87 [ ] Enable deprecated sysfs features by default [CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED_V2]
88 [*] open by fhandle syscalls [CONFIG_FHANDLE]
89 [ ] Auditing support [CONFIG_AUDIT]
90 [*] Control Group support [CONFIG_CGROUPS]
91 Processor type and features --->
92 [*] Enable seccomp to safely compute untrusted bytecode [CONFIG_SECCOMP]
93 Networking support --->
94 Networking options --->
95 <*> The IPv6 protocol [CONFIG_IPV6]
96 Device Drivers --->
97 Generic Driver Options --->
98 [ ] Support for uevent helper [CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER]
99 [*] Maintain a devtmpfs filesystem to mount at /dev [CONFIG_DEVTMPFS]
100 [ ] Fallback user-helper invocation for firmware loading [CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER]
101 Firmware Drivers --->
102 [*] Export DMI identification via sysfs to userspace [CONFIG_DMIID]
104 [*] Inotify support for userspace [CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER]
105 <*> Kernel automounter version 4 support (also supports v3) [CONFIG_AUTOFS4_FS]
106 Pseudo filesystems --->
107 [*] Tmpfs POSIX Access Control Lists [CONFIG_TMPFS_POSIX_ACL]
108 [*] Tmpfs extended attributes [CONFIG_TMPFS_XATTR]</screen>
112 <note revision="systemd">
113 <para>While "The IPv6 Protocol" is not strictly
114 required, it is highly recommended by the systemd developers.</para>
117 <para revision="sysv">There are several other options that may be desired
118 depending on the requirements for the system. For a list of options needed
119 for BLFS packages, see the <ulink
120 url="&lfs-root;blfs/view/&short-version;/longindex.html#kernel-config-index">BLFS
121 Index of Kernel Settings</ulink>
122 (&lfs-root;blfs/view/&short-version;/longindex.html#kernel-config-index).</para>
125 <title>The rationale for the above configuration items:</title>
128 <term><parameter>Support for uevent helper</parameter></term>
130 <para>Having this option set may interfere with device
131 management when using Udev/Eudev. </para>
136 <term><parameter>Maintain a devtmpfs</parameter></term>
138 <para>This will create automated device nodes which are populated by the
139 kernel, even without Udev running. Udev then runs on top of this,
140 managing permissions and adding symlinks. This configuration
141 item is required for all users of Udev/Eudev.</para>
147 <screen role="nodump"><userinput>make menuconfig</userinput></screen>
150 <title>The meaning of optional make environment variables:</title>
153 <term><parameter>LANG=<host_LANG_value> LC_ALL=</parameter></term>
155 <para>This establishes the locale setting to the one used on the
156 host. This may be needed for a proper menuconfig ncurses interface
157 line drawing on a UTF-8 linux text console.</para>
159 <para>If used, be sure to replace
160 <replaceable><host_LANG_value></replaceable> by the value of
161 the <envar>$LANG</envar> variable from your host. You can
162 alternatively use instead the host's value of <envar>$LC_ALL</envar>
163 or <envar>$LC_CTYPE</envar>.</para>
169 <para>Alternatively, <command>make oldconfig</command> may be more
170 appropriate in some situations. See the <filename>README</filename>
171 file for more information.</para>
173 <para>If desired, skip kernel configuration by copying the kernel
174 config file, <filename>.config</filename>, from the host system
175 (assuming it is available) to the unpacked <filename
176 class="directory">linux-&linux-version;</filename> directory. However,
177 we do not recommend this option. It is often better to explore all the
178 configuration menus and create the kernel configuration from
181 <para>Compile the kernel image and modules:</para>
183 <screen><userinput remap="make">make</userinput></screen>
185 <para>If using kernel modules, module configuration in <filename
186 class="directory">/etc/modprobe.d</filename> may be required.
187 Information pertaining to modules and kernel configuration is
188 located in <xref linkend="ch-scripts-udev"/> and in the kernel
189 documentation in the <filename
190 class="directory">linux-&linux-version;/Documentation</filename> directory.
191 Also, <filename>modprobe.d(5)</filename> may be of interest.</para>
193 <para>Install the modules, if the kernel configuration uses them:</para>
195 <screen><userinput remap="install">make modules_install</userinput></screen>
197 <para>After kernel compilation is complete, additional steps are
198 required to complete the installation. Some files need to be copied to
199 the <filename class="directory">/boot</filename> directory.</para>
202 <para>If the host system has a separate /boot partition, the
203 files copied below should go there. The easiest way to do that
204 is to bind /boot on the host to /mnt/lfs/boot before proceeding:</para>
206 <screen role="nodump"><userinput>mount --bind /boot /mnt/lfs/boot</userinput></screen>
209 <para>The path to the kernel image may vary depending on the platform being
210 used. The filename below can be changed to suit your taste, but the stem of
211 the filename should be <emphasis>vmlinuz</emphasis> to be compatible with
212 the automatic setup of the boot process described in the next section. The
213 following command assumes an x86 architecture:</para>
215 <screen revision="sysv"><userinput remap="install">cp -v arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-&linux-version;-lfs-&version;</userinput></screen>
217 <screen revision="systemd"><userinput remap="install">cp -v arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-&linux-version;-lfs-&versiond;</userinput></screen>
219 <para><filename>System.map</filename> is a symbol file for the kernel.
220 It maps the function entry points of every function in the kernel API,
221 as well as the addresses of the kernel data structures for the running
222 kernel. It is used as a resource when investigating kernel problems.
223 Issue the following command to install the map file:</para>
225 <screen><userinput remap="install">cp -v System.map /boot/System.map-&linux-version;</userinput></screen>
227 <para>The kernel configuration file <filename>.config</filename>
228 produced by the <command>make menuconfig</command> step
229 above contains all the configuration selections for the kernel
230 that was just compiled. It is a good idea to keep this file for future
233 <screen><userinput remap="install">cp -v .config /boot/config-&linux-version;</userinput></screen>
235 <para>Install the documentation for the Linux kernel:</para>
237 <screen><userinput remap="install">install -d /usr/share/doc/linux-&linux-version;
238 cp -r Documentation/* /usr/share/doc/linux-&linux-version;</userinput></screen>
240 <para>It is important to note that the files in the kernel source
241 directory are not owned by <emphasis>root</emphasis>. Whenever a
242 package is unpacked as user <emphasis>root</emphasis> (like we did
243 inside chroot), the files have the user and group IDs of whatever
244 they were on the packager's computer. This is usually not a problem
245 for any other package to be installed because the source tree is
246 removed after the installation. However, the Linux source tree is
247 often retained for a long time. Because of this, there is a chance
248 that whatever user ID the packager used will be assigned to somebody
249 on the machine. That person would then have write access to the kernel
253 <para>In many cases, the configuration of the kernel will need to be
254 updated for packages that will be installed later in BLFS. Unlike
255 other packages, it is not necessary to remove the kernel source tree
256 after the newly built kernel is installed.</para>
258 <para>If the kernel source tree is going to be retained, run
259 <command>chown -R 0:0</command> on the <filename
260 class="directory">linux-&linux-version;</filename> directory to ensure
261 all files are owned by user <emphasis>root</emphasis>.</para>
265 <para>Some kernel documentation recommends creating a symlink from
266 <filename class="symlink">/usr/src/linux</filename> pointing to the kernel
267 source directory. This is specific to kernels prior to the 2.6 series and
268 <emphasis>must not</emphasis> be created on an LFS system as it can cause
269 problems for packages you may wish to build once your base LFS system is
274 <para>The headers in the system's <filename
275 class="directory">include</filename> directory (<filename
276 class="directory">/usr/include</filename>) should
277 <emphasis>always</emphasis> be the ones against which Glibc was compiled,
278 that is, the sanitised headers installed in <xref
279 linkend="ch-system-linux-headers"/>. Therefore, they should
280 <emphasis>never</emphasis> be replaced by either the raw kernel headers
281 or any other kernel sanitized headers.</para>
286 <sect2 id="conf-modprobe" role="configuration">
287 <title>Configuring Linux Module Load Order</title>
289 <indexterm zone="conf-modprobe">
290 <primary sortas="e-/etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf">/etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf</primary>
293 <para>Most of the time Linux modules are loaded automatically, but
294 sometimes it needs some specific direction. The program that loads
295 modules, <command>modprobe</command> or <command>insmod</command>, uses
296 <filename>/etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf</filename> for this purpose. This file
297 needs to be created so that if the USB drivers (ehci_hcd, ohci_hcd and
298 uhci_hcd) have been built as modules, they will be loaded in the correct
299 order; ehci_hcd needs to be loaded prior to ohci_hcd and uhci_hcd in order
300 to avoid a warning being output at boot time.</para>
302 <para>Create a new file <filename>/etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf</filename> by running
303 the following:</para>
305 <screen><userinput>install -v -m755 -d /etc/modprobe.d
306 cat > /etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf << "EOF"
307 <literal># Begin /etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf
309 install ohci_hcd /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd ; /sbin/modprobe -i ohci_hcd ; true
310 install uhci_hcd /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd ; /sbin/modprobe -i uhci_hcd ; true
312 # End /etc/modprobe.d/usb.conf</literal>
313 EOF</userinput></screen>
317 <sect2 id="contents-kernel" role="content">
318 <title>Contents of Linux</title>
321 <segtitle>Installed files</segtitle>
322 <segtitle>Installed directories</segtitle>
325 <seg>config-&linux-version;,
326 <phrase revision="sysv">vmlinuz-&linux-version;-lfs-&version;,</phrase>
327 <phrase revision="systemd">vmlinuz-&linux-version;-lfs-&versiond;,</phrase>
328 and System.map-&linux-version;</seg>
329 <seg>/lib/modules, /usr/share/doc/linux-&linux-version;</seg>
334 <bridgehead renderas="sect3">Short Descriptions</bridgehead>
335 <?dbfo list-presentation="list"?>
336 <?dbhtml list-presentation="table"?>
338 <varlistentry id="config">
339 <term><filename>config-&linux-version;</filename></term>
341 <para>Contains all the configuration selections for the kernel</para>
342 <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-kernel config">
343 <primary sortas="e-/boot/config">/boot/config-&linux-version;</primary>
348 <varlistentry id="lfskernel">
349 <term revision="sysv"><filename>vmlinuz-&linux-version;-lfs-&version;</filename></term>
350 <term revision="systemd"><filename>vmlinuz-&linux-version;-lfs-&versiond;</filename></term>
352 <para>The engine of the Linux system. When turning on the computer,
353 the kernel is the first part of the operating system that gets loaded.
354 It detects and initializes all components of the computer's hardware,
355 then makes these components available as a tree of files to the
356 software and turns a single CPU into a multitasking machine capable
357 of running scores of programs seemingly at the same time</para>
358 <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-kernel lfskernel">
359 <primary sortas="b-lfskernel">lfskernel-&linux-version;</primary>
364 <varlistentry id="System.map">
365 <term><filename>System.map-&linux-version;</filename></term>
367 <para>A list of addresses and symbols; it maps the entry points and
368 addresses of all the functions and data structures in the
370 <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-kernel System.map">
371 <primary sortas="e-/boot/System.map">/boot/System.map-&linux-version;</primary>