From: Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646 [tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 1999 1:14 PM To: Jim Fitzmaurice Subject: Re: Some more thoughts on your DEGPA driver problems.. > Tom, > I'll arrange for maintenance time to try your suggestions. Just one > question: How do I load the driver? As I indicated I can't do it because > "setld" indicates it's already loaded and doesn't have the required files. > (They were over written when it was initially loaded.) I can't back it out > because they are kernel modules. So how do I get around "setld"? I don't > need to reload them, I just need to re-configure it, right? What does > "setld" use to configure the drivers, and can I run it? > > Jim Fitzmaurice > jpfitz@fnal.gov OK, there are TWO separate aspects to loading a driver that's delivered as a separate kit from the base OS. First, you use some tool (e.g., setld) to load the driver kit onto the system so that its files are accessible in the usual way through the file system. In the case of a well-designed kit (as opposed to a raw tar saveset, say), there will be a script (such as the .scp files delivered in a setld kit) that configures the driver software on the system, registering it in all of the right places so the kernel build process or dynamic load process can use it. The DEGPA driver kit fits that model. I won't rule out the possibility that the kit can NOT be uninstalled using the setld utility. If you've got the kit, and want to reinstall it, then you probably should take a look at the kit files and see what the .scp scripts did after all of the software was loaded. There may be some things you need to undo if you are doing to remove the kit contents manually, or try to reinstall on top of the existing files. For instance, some kits register themselves in a kernel database call /sys/conf/.product.list (and that gets copied into the /sys/conf/CONFIGNAME.list when you build a kernel later on). There are other things a kit might do, like make symlinks in /usr or /sys that lead to its components. You need to undo these things manually. Once you've got the kit "uninstalled", you can go into the directory /usr/.smdb. and remove the kit's .lk file (or all of the kit's inventory records and such) and then setld will let you re-install the kit. Once the kit components are present on the system, if it's a loadable driver (as is the case with alt.mod), then you can use the sysconfig command to load the driver into the kernel as a loadable subsystem. For instance, once the DEGPA driver kit has been installed, if you've got the "genvmunix" kernel running, you should be able to use the command # sysconfig -c alt to load the alt driver into the kernel. There is a database of subsystems that is queried by the kernel to load a subsystem it doesn't know about, and the DEGPA kit installation procedures register the kit's alt.mod in the right places in that database. (That's why you've got to undo part of what the kit did before you can re-install the kit on top of itself.) Hope this helps (operationally). I have to admit I have not personally done a DEGPA installation, but my colleague who works on this stuff is really good and it sure sounds like he's got it working. Tom Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + UNIX Software Group + Compaq Computer Corporation 110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/W17 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698 Technology Partnership Engineering Phone: (603) 884-0646 Internet: tpb@zk3.dec.com Digital's Easynet: alpha::tpb ACM Member: tpblinn@acm.org PC@Home: tom@felines.mv.net Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work. Keep your stick on the ice. -- Steve Smith ("Red Green") My favorite palindrome is: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. -- Phil Agre, pagre@ucsd.edu Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / UNIX is like that -- apologies to Margaret Segall Opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or anyone else, living or dead, real or imagined.