Syslinux - Nov 2004 - Upgrading PXE initrd.img with new kernel and drivers

Quite simply, HOW? :)

I have the pxeboot initrd.img from the RH 3.0 AS CD's.  We need to put a new
cciss.o driver from HP into this initrd.img.  Unforunately, the modules in
the pxeboot initrd.img we have are 2.4.21-4 and our new driver is compiled
for 2.4.21-15, so we have to upgrade everything.

I downloaded the kernel-BOOT-2.4.21-15 RPM and installed that, so I have all
those drivers.  My question is:  Can I use the 2.4.21-4 initrd.img and just
replace the entire modules.cgz with all the modules from the BOOT rpm and
our new cciss.o in there?  I'm not sure what exactly the difference is
between the PXE version of initrd.img and regular boot initrd.img, but a
simple "find ./ -type f" shows that the PXE one has a lot more files
and I'm
not too sure whether those are kernel dependant or not and if so, where do I
get them from?  Also, I believe I have to update stage2.img in the base
directory that will be downloaded, but I don't know for sure and if someone
could confirm that, I would appreciate it.

Here's an example of our differences.

2.4.21-15
./init_nonboot/lib/scsi_mod.o
./init_nonboot/lib/sd_mod.o
./init_nonboot/lib/cciss.o
./init_nonboot/lib/lvm-mod.o
./init_nonboot/lib/jbd.o
./init_nonboot/lib/ext3.o
./init_nonboot/bin/nash
./init_nonboot/bin/insmod
./init_nonboot/bin/vgwrapper
./init_nonboot/bin/vgscan
./init_nonboot/bin/vgchange
./init_nonboot/linuxrc

2.4.21-4 ( our PXE initrd.img from the RH3.0AS cd )
./init/modules/module-info
./init/modules/pcitable
./init/modules/modules.dep
./init/modules/modules.pcimap
./init/modules/modules.cgz
./init/sbin/loader
./init/sbin/init
./init/etc/terminfo/l/linux
./init/etc/terminfo/x/xterm
./init/etc/terminfo/v/vt100
./init/etc/terminfo/v/vt100-nav
./init/etc/terminfo/b/bterm
./init/etc/passwd
./init/etc/arch
./init/etc/keymaps.gz
./init/etc/screenfont.gz
./init/etc/lang-table
./init/etc/loader.tr
./init/etc/font.bgf.gz
./init/etc/pcmcia/config
./init/etc/ramfs.img
./init/.buildstamp
./init/.profile

Any help is appreciated.  At the moment, we're prevented from installing RH
on any of our new hardware until this starts working.

Thanks,

sh

Steven Hajducko wrote:
>Quite simply, HOW? :)
>
>I have the pxeboot initrd.img from the RH 3.0 AS CD's.  We need to put a
new
>cciss.o driver from HP into this initrd.img.  Unforunately, the modules in
>the pxeboot initrd.img we have are 2.4.21-4 and our new driver is compiled
>for 2.4.21-15, so we have to upgrade everything.
>
>I downloaded the kernel-BOOT-2.4.21-15 RPM and installed that, so I have all
>those drivers.  My question is:  Can I use the 2.4.21-4 initrd.img and just
>replace the entire modules.cgz with all the modules from the BOOT rpm and
>our new cciss.o in there?  I'm not sure what exactly the difference is
>between the PXE version of initrd.img and regular boot initrd.img, but a
>simple "find ./ -type f" shows that the PXE one has a lot more
files and I'm
>not too sure whether those are kernel dependant or not and if so, where do I
>get them from?  Also, I believe I have to update stage2.img in the base
>directory that will be downloaded, but I don't know for sure and if
someone
>could confirm that, I would appreciate it.
>  
>
This is really the wrong list.  You should try the kickstart mailing list at

https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list

They tackle this subject on a regular basis.

Michael