A note describing the process of installing Centos 6.9 with 2.6.34 Kernel in order to be able to work along with Robert Love’s 2010 book, Linux Kernel Development, 3rd. ed., in the modern era.

Overview

The purpose of installing this system is to have a system capable of working through Robert Love’s 2010 book, Linux Kernel Development, 3rd. ed. In the book, the author is explaining how the 2.6.34 kernel works. The system described below is suitable for working with the 2.6.34 kernel and through the Love book.

References

Kroah-Hartman, G. (2007). Linux Kernel in a Nutshell. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Love, R. (2010). Linux Kernel Development (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley.

Systems tested on

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)

Processor 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 - 4 cores
Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.3
Darwin giar 17.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 17.4.0: Sun Dec 17 09:19:54 PST 2017; root:xnu-4570.41.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
VirtualBox 5.2.8-121009

HP EliteDesk 800

Processor 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5 - 4 cores
Memory 16 GB 2133 MHz SODIMM Synchronous
Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia XFCE 64-bit
Linux giar 4.13.0-36-generic #40~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Feb 16 23:25:58 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
VirtualBox 5.2.8-121009

Guest OS

Centos 6.9 32 bit

Resources

https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/I_need_the_Kernel_Source

https://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_compilation_centos

https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Custom_Kernel

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel/Configuration

Preparations

mkdir ~/love
cd ~/love

Centos Versions - the Vault

Latest in 6.x series in order to have 2.6.x kernel

https://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/linux/centos-vault/

https://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/linux/centos-vault/6.9/isos/i386/

gpg --recv-keys C105B9DE

or

curl -OL https://www.centos.org/keys/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6
gpg --import RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6

Download the iso

curl -OL https://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/linux/centos-vault/6.9/isos/i386/CentOS-6.9-i386-minimal.iso
curl -OL https://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/linux/centos-vault/6.9/isos/i386/sha256sum.txt.asc
gpg --verify sha256sum.txt.asc
...
gpg: Good signature from "CentOS-6 Key (CentOS 6 Official Signing Key) <centos-6-key@centos.org>" [unknown]
...

cat sha256sum.txt.asc
...
e104b3bc2261e40c020e4047d31a4454a00435787c54fb0a376261f9348382b7  CentOS-6.9-i386-minimal.iso
...

openssl sha256 CentOS-6.9-i386-minimal.iso
SHA256(CentOS-6.9-i386-minimal.iso)= e104b3bc2261e40c020e4047d31a4454a00435787c54fb0a376261f9348382b7

Create a Centos Instance in Virtual Box

VBox Settings

New VirtualBox VM
Name: centos69
Version: Red Hat (32-bit)
Memory: 4096MB
HDD: 20GB
Add iso to storage
SSH PortForward 3333 22

Boot VM

Press Enter to Install or upgrade an existing system
Press Enter twice to Test the media
Press Enter to accept success :)
Reattach the iso (it has been ejected)
Press Enter to continue
Press Tab to select Continue and Press Enter
Click Next in the Graphic Installer to begin the Graphical Installation Process
Click Next to accept English as the Installer Language
Click Next to accept US English as the keyboard mapping
Click Next to accept Basic Storage Devices as the install target
Click Next to accept Fresh Install
Choose Yes, Discard any data
Enter centos69.sentech.home as the Hostname and then click Next
Choose America/Chicago and Click Next
Enter and confirm a root password and click Next
Choose Use All Space as the installation type and Click Next
Click Write changes to disk
The installer will finish up and install the system
Click Reboot
Eject the iso and halt

snapshot installed using vbox

Restart VM

login as root

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
change to
ONBOOT=yes

adduser -m -G wheel wsenn
passwd wsenn
visudo
uncomment wheel login

uname -a
Linux centos69.sentech.home 2.6.32-696.el6.i686 #1 SMP Tue Mar 21 18:53:30 UTC 2017 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

halt

snapshot baseline

Restart VM

from host

ssh-copy-id localhost -p 3333
ssh localhost -p 3333

sudo yum update

sudo halt
snapshot updated

from host

VBoxManage list vms
...
"centos69" {09bffb07-6c39-413b-9497-44b1d5ae7dd7}
...

VBoxManage modifyvm "centos69" --defaultfrontend headless

Start the VM back up

uname -a
Linux centos69.sentech.home 2.6.32-696.20.1.el6.i686 #1 SMP Fri Jan 26 18:13:32 UTC 2018 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

sudo yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'
sudo yum install rpm-build redhat-rpm-config asciidoc bison hmaccalc patchutils perl-ExtUtils-Embed xmlto audit-libs-devel binutils-devel elfutils-devel elfutils-libelf-devel newt-devel python-devel zlib-devel rng-tools ncurses-devel wget

sudo halt
snapshot with-devtools

start VM

find the current source https://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/linux/centos-vault/6.9/updates/Source/SPackages

login as ordinary user!

sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom

rpm -iv http://vault.centos.org/6.9/updates/Source/SPackages/kernel-2.6.32-696.20.1.el6.src.rpm 2>&1

This can take a few minutes depending on the download speed

cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS
rpmbuild -bp --target=$(uname -m) kernel.spec

it will hang on genkey if random pool isn’t set up (sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom)

Another few minutes for unpacking

confirm you have sources

ls ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel*/linux*/

sudo halt

snapshot centos-kernel-sources-installed

Install and Build the 2.6.34 Kernel

start the vm login as wsenn

gpg --locate-keys torvalds@kernel.org gregkh@kernel.org
gpg --recv-keys 0D3B3537C4790F9D

mkdir ~/Downloads
cd ~/Downloads

On this attempt, picked 2.6.34.7 kernel

download a tarball https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/
wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.34.7.tar.xz
wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.34.7.tar.sign

mkdir ~/linux
cd ~/linux
cp ~/Downloads/linux-* .
unxz linux-2.6.34.7.tar.xz

gpg --verify linux-2.6.34.7.tar.sign linux-2.6.34.7.tar
...
gpg: Good signature from "Linux Kernel Archives Verification Key (One-off resign
ing of old releases) <ftpadmin@kernel.org>" [unknown]
...

tar xvf linux-2.6.34.7.tar 
cd linux-2.6.34.7
make clean && make mrproper

cp /usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-696.20.1.el6.i686/.config .
make oldconfig

take the 108 or so defaults (keep hitting enter)

time make -j8

Results on MacBook:

real	41m26.502s
user	34m34.099s
sys	5m4.724s

Results on HP EliteDesk:

real	30m12.195s
user	24m0.289s
sys	4m53.942s

sudo make modules_install
sudo make install

ignoring modinfo error nf_defrag_ipv6

/boot/grub/menu.lst is modified with the new kernel as first in list, but not default

sudo reboot (make sure you’re seeing the console as you will need to select the kernel to boot from - click Show in VirtualBox while booting)

uname -a
Linux centos69.sentech.home 2.6.34.7 #1 SMP Fri Mar 2 22:34:26 CST 2018 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
sudo halt

snapshot running-2.6.34

Celebrate - you are ready to begin kernel hackery.

If you wanna boot to this kernel by default

sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst
change to
default=0

Notes

Some words about make config commands from gentoo/arch wiki w/mods

  • make config

Text based configuration. The options are prompted one after another. All options need to be answered, and out-of-order access to former options is not possible.

  • make menuconfig

An ncurses-based pseudo-graphical menu (only text input). Navigate through the menu to modify the desired options.

  • make defconfig

Generates a new config with default from the Centos? supplied defconfig file. Use this option to get back the default configuration file that came with the sources.

  • make oldconfig

Review changes between kernel versions and update to create a new .config for the kernel.

Before you run make oldconfig You need to copy an kernel configuration file from an older kernel into the root directory of the new kernel.

  • make olddefconfig

Generates a new configuration with default values from the ARCH supplied defconfig file while, at the same time, maintaining all the previous options set in the .config file found at /usr/src/linux/.config. This is a fast and safe method for upgrading a config file that has all the configuration options it needs for hardware support while at the same time gaining bug fixes and security patches.

post added 2022-12-01 18:54:00 -0600