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The RockFlag for India

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Unable to downgrade installed kernel on suse 11U4

Hello All,

I have suse 11u4 installed but having 3.0.101-107 kernel . But i need 3.0.101-63 as one module only works with "3.0.101-63".

this  "3.0.101-63" comes with default ISO from SLES but when i ma trying to install or upgrade in both situation in last it gives either dependency issue or rpm exec issue something. due to GLIBC.

I have only 2 opton to fix it:

1. Downgrade kernel from 107 to 63 (recommended)
2. Shifting or reload current module which is configured for "3.0.101-107" to "3.0.101-63" but dont know how.

Pease help
Avatar of David Favor
David Favor
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This is correct behavior.

When you upgrade your Kernel, many other system libraries (like libc) can also update.

This, creates a cascade where all software dependent on libc also update.

Downgrading a Kernel really means downgrading... sometimes 100s of software packages.

Be very careful to only execute this type of action using a dryrun flag, till you get a clean downlevel.

If you somehow get some packages downleveled + other broken, you may end up with a Bricked system (unable to finish a clean boot).

If a client asked me to do this, I'd start with a fresh machine + install the exact kernel version, then port their code to the downlevel machine.

Using a fresh install of downleveled Kernels, is the cleanest/fastest way to produce your desired runtime environment + ensure you have a machine that boots.
You can install multiple kernel versions in suse :

https://www.suse.com/documentation/opensuse114/book_tuning/data/cha_tuning_multikernel_zypper.html

https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book.opensuse.reference/cha.tuning.multikernel.html

You can keep Older Kernels as Fallback.

Not sure how it will work after you have updated the kernel though.
Avatar of The Rock

ASKER

Thanks for your suggestion but i need to install one more kernel which is lower then current one. not higher one.
if kernel downgrade not possible then is it possible to use one custom module configured for diffrent kernel to with other kernel.
Modules are usually compiled using kernel headers of the same version as the kernel. In general it's incompatible with any other kernel version.

That been said, you can try to load it with
modprobe -f "module_name_here"

Open in new window

which will ignore version checks.
ok this is the kernel i need to add with diffrent kernel:
host-192-168-1-118:/lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front # pwd
/lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front
host-192-168-1-118:/lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front # ls
scsi_ep_front.ko

I want to add this with :

host-192-168-1-118:/lib/modules/3.0.101-107-default/kernel/drivers # pwd
/lib/modules/3.0.101-107-default/kernel/drivers/

on same machine.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Panagiotis Toumpaniaris
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host-192-168-1-118:/lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front # ls -la
total 1492
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Sep 27 12:03 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root    4096 Sep 27 12:03 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1513353 Aug  3 10:38 scsi_ep_front.ko
host-192-168-1-118:/lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front # modprobe -f  /lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front/scsi_ep_front.ko
FATAL: Module /lib/modules/3.0.101_63_default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front/scsi_ep_front.ko not found.
host-192-168-1-118:/lib/modules/3.0.101-63-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/scsi_ep_front #


Tried but this not work.

@David Favour - Agreed with you comments but sitiuation is diffcult - i need to make this module work without installing new machine. so either i should downgrade kernel to the needed one or manually add this module to the current kernel
This solution is best for inserting a module to the kernel, but it is not advisable in practice just as David said.