Building iso using custom kernel

mhkndo · September 23, 2020, 3:38pm

Hi everyone, I would like to use a custom kernel while building vyos with vyos-build repo. Only change is in the “x86_64_vyos_defconfig” file.

I’ve downloaded 4.19.0 tagged kernel from vanilla repositories of kernel and build my custom kernel using build_kernel.sh. Then I’ve placed .deb packages (linux-image… and linux-headers) are placed under vyos-build/packages folder. But during “make iso” it tries to use both repository version and my custom version and gives following error:

So basically I want it to use my custom kernel while making iso, any suggestions?

c-po · September 23, 2020, 4:03pm

If you download plain vanilla 4.19 this of course won‘t work as the versions used by debian live build won‘t match. Why you need a custom Kernel? Anything we missed? The kernel version used during ISO build is specified in data/defaults.json.

Please also keep in mind when switching versions you need to rebuild all of our 3rd party modules like I tel QAT, NIC drivers, Wireguard and Accel-PPP. See Kernel Jenkinsfile for all required Steps!

mhkndo · September 24, 2020, 6:31am

Hi @c-po thanks for answering.

I’m trying to add ndpi-netfilter functionality to vyos. According to GitHub - vel21ripn/nDPI: Open Source Deep Packet Inspection Software Toolkit we need to have following configs set in kernel config:

CONFIG_NF_CONNTRACK=m or y
CONFIG_NF_CONNTRACK_LABELS=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER_XT_MATCH_CONNLABEL=m
CONFIG_UNUSED_SYMBOLS=y

In version 4.19.146 this config is not set “CONFIG_UNUSED_SYMBOLS”. So I’m actually trying to get a kernel with this configuration.

so my question is if I use 4.19.146 from the vanilla repo and follow the steps in kernel jenkins file should it work? Because as far as I can see, even if I place linux-image…deb package to packages folder, I see that “make iso” still downloads 4.19.146 from the repository. So I want it to use my kernel instead of repository version.

c-po · September 24, 2020, 7:20pm

Adding this option would be quiet easy for both of us.
I took the opportunity to document how our Kernel is built (build-vyos: add instructions how to build Linux Kernel · vyos/vyos-documentation@e9171f3 · GitHub).

Please check out the updated documentation at

I hope this helps!

mhkndo · September 25, 2020, 6:22am

Hi Christian,

Thanks for the update it helped a lot. Using kernel 4.19.146 from vanilla repositories was the trick. I’ve build it with build_kernel.sh and placed to packages. Now “sudo make iso” uses the version I’ve added.

ps: not including other modules (wireguard etc.) is not causing an error in “sudo make iso”. But of course this is not the correct way of building vyos.

Best,
Hakan

c-po · September 25, 2020, 12:22pm

Hi @mhkndo,

as long as the Kernel version stays the same there is no big issue, once it diverges errors will appear building the ISO.

Nice seeing one work on nDPI.

–
Christian

system · September 28, 2020, 6:36am

This topic was automatically closed 2 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.