I'm considering using R1Soft to backup my Linode running CentOS 6.3. Looking through the R1Soft Agent installation instructions, I will at some point need to build an R1Soft device driver in the form of kernel module. This requires that I have the kernel-devel package installed on my Linode.

How can I install the correct kernel-devel package? I'm using the "Latest 3.5 (3.5.2-linode45)" kernel.

I'm guessing that it is not simply a matter of doing a "yum install kernel-devel" since I'm not running the distribution kernel?

Any advice would be appreciated,
Tom

First, you'll have to switch over to using the distribution-supplied* kernel. The library article doesn't cover CentOS 6, so you'll have to find your own way on this. Note that the kernel-xen package is no longer in 6; just install/update the kernel package instead.

Once you are booting with the stock CentOS kernel, uname -r should yield "2.6.32-279.11.1.el6". Then try section 1 of this wiki howto and see if the module will build. If not, move on to section 2.


*Well, you could build a custom one instead, but this is probably easiest.

Thanks for your reply, Vance - I'll setup a new Linode and try this.

Other than actually getting it to work, are there any obvious disadvantages of running with the CentOS kernel instead of the one Linode provides?

Tom

Not that I know of. In the past, Linode made some custom tweaks to their kernels so they'd run properly as Xen guests, but I think that's all part of the stock kernels these days.

Just to report back, I've been able to switch to the CentOS 6.3 distribution kernel and install the R1Soft agent on a test Linode. This turned out to be rather painless, once again thanks for the assistance.

In case anyone else is trying to do this, these are the steps I went through:

* Created a fresh Linode with the 32-bit Centos 6.2 image.
* Used yum to update CentOS to 6.3
* Ran "yum install kernel" to retrieve the distribution kernel
* Created /boot/grup/grub.conf (mostly copied from another post on this forum, unfortunately I didn't save the link):

# boot=/dev/xvda
# kopt=root=/dev/xvda console=tty0 console=hvc0 ro quiet
# groot=(hd0)

default=0
timeout=5

title CentOS (2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.i686)
root (hd0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.i686 root=/dev/xvda console=tty0 console=hvc0 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.i686.img

* Created a symbolic link menu.lst -> grup.conf:
ln -s /boot/grub/grub.conf /boot/grub/menu.lst

* Changed the configuration profile from the Linode dashboard to boot using "pv-grup-x86_32"
* Rebooted the Linode
* Installed the R1Soft agent following this procedure: http://wiki.r1soft.com/display/CDP3/Ins ... and+Fedora

No problems that I've noticed, but then this isn't a production Linode.

Would anyone be willing to help me modify the script above to install the R1Soft (now Idera) agent on an x64 CentOS 6.4 Linode?

I've not messed with kernels before in my sysadmin experience, and I'm just not quite capable enough to figure this out on my own. I'd really love to get CDP backup running on my Linode, though...

https://library.linode.com/custom-insta ... grub-howto <-

I run Idera, I just had to do that

Thanks! I had not seen that. However, I'm not sure if those instructions are still relevant.

In the CentOS 6 section (https://library.linode.com/custom-insta ... h_centos-6), Step 5 says to "Create a file named /boot/grub/menu.lst with the following contents. Adjust the title, kernel, and initrd lines to reflect the actual file names found in the /boot/ directory."

Perhaps I have misunderstood something, but my /boot/ directory is completely empty, so I don't know what to set those lines to.

Also, Steps 3 and 10, which are supposed to demonstrate the changes with uname -a, show the exact same output. Even with the old kernels listed in the post, I don't think that would be correct, would it?