1.. _changes:
2
3Minimal requirements to compile the Kernel
4++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5
6Intro
7=====
8
9This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
10software necessary to run the 4.x kernels.
11
12This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
13and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
14Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
15'net).
16
17Current Minimal Requirements
18****************************
19
20Upgrade to at **least** these software revisions before thinking you've
21encountered a bug!  If you're unsure what version you're currently
22running, the suggested command should tell you.
23
24Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
25running a Linux kernel.  Also, not all tools are necessary on all
26systems; obviously, if you don't have any PC Card hardware, for example,
27you probably needn't concern yourself with pcmciautils.
28
29====================== ===============  ========================================
30        Program        Minimal version       Command to check the version
31====================== ===============  ========================================
32GNU C                  4.6              gcc --version
33GNU make               3.81             make --version
34binutils               2.21             ld -v
35flex                   2.5.35           flex --version
36bison                  2.0              bison --version
37util-linux             2.10o            fdformat --version
38kmod                   13               depmod -V
39e2fsprogs              1.41.4           e2fsck -V
40jfsutils               1.1.3            fsck.jfs -V
41reiserfsprogs          3.6.3            reiserfsck -V
42xfsprogs               2.6.0            xfs_db -V
43squashfs-tools         4.0              mksquashfs -version
44btrfs-progs            0.18             btrfsck
45pcmciautils            004              pccardctl -V
46quota-tools            3.09             quota -V
47PPP                    2.4.0            pppd --version
48nfs-utils              1.0.5            showmount --version
49procps                 3.2.0            ps --version
50oprofile               0.9              oprofiled --version
51udev                   081              udevd --version
52grub                   0.93             grub --version || grub-install --version
53mcelog                 0.6              mcelog --version
54iptables               1.4.2            iptables -V
55openssl & libcrypto    1.0.0            openssl version
56bc                     1.06.95          bc --version
57Sphinx\ [#f1]_	       1.3		sphinx-build --version
58====================== ===============  ========================================
59
60.. [#f1] Sphinx is needed only to build the Kernel documentation
61
62Kernel compilation
63******************
64
65GCC
66---
67
68The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
69computer.
70
71Make
72----
73
74You will need GNU make 3.81 or later to build the kernel.
75
76Binutils
77--------
78
79Binutils 2.21 or newer is needed to build the kernel.
80
81pkg-config
82----------
83
84The build system, as of 4.18, requires pkg-config to check for installed
85kconfig tools and to determine flags settings for use in
86'make {g,x}config'.  Previously pkg-config was being used but not
87verified or documented.
88
89Flex
90----
91
92Since Linux 4.16, the build system generates lexical analyzers
93during build.  This requires flex 2.5.35 or later.
94
95
96Bison
97-----
98
99Since Linux 4.16, the build system generates parsers
100during build.  This requires bison 2.0 or later.
101
102Perl
103----
104
105You will need perl 5 and the following modules: ``Getopt::Long``,
106``Getopt::Std``, ``File::Basename``, and ``File::Find`` to build the kernel.
107
108BC
109--
110
111You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
112
113
114OpenSSL
115-------
116
117Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and
118crypto library to do key creation and signature generation.
119
120You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is
121enabled.  You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3
122and higher.
123
124
125System utilities
126****************
127
128Architectural changes
129---------------------
130
131DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
132(http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
133
13432-bit UID support is now in place.  Have fun!
135
136Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
137documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
138definitions in the source.  These comments can be combined with ReST
139files the Documentation/ directory to make enriched documentation, which can
140then be converted to PostScript, HTML, LaTex, ePUB and PDF files.
141In order to convert from ReST format to a format of your choice, you'll need
142Sphinx.
143
144Util-linux
145----------
146
147New versions of util-linux provide ``fdisk`` support for larger disks,
148support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
149types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
150You'll probably want to upgrade.
151
152Ksymoops
153--------
154
155If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
156ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
157It is generally preferred to build the kernel with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` so
158that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
159produces better output than ksymoops).  If for some reason your kernel
160is not build with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` and you have no way to rebuild and
161reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
162with ksymoops.
163
164Mkinitrd
165--------
166
167These changes to the ``/lib/modules`` file tree layout also require that
168mkinitrd be upgraded.
169
170E2fsprogs
171---------
172
173The latest version of ``e2fsprogs`` fixes several bugs in fsck and
174debugfs.  Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
175
176JFSutils
177--------
178
179The ``jfsutils`` package contains the utilities for the file system.
180The following utilities are available:
181
182- ``fsck.jfs`` - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
183  and repair a JFS formatted partition.
184
185- ``mkfs.jfs`` - create a JFS formatted partition.
186
187- other file system utilities are also available in this package.
188
189Reiserfsprogs
190-------------
191
192The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
193(Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
194versions of ``mkreiserfs``, ``resize_reiserfs``, ``debugreiserfs`` and
195``reiserfsck``. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
196
197Xfsprogs
198--------
199
200The latest version of ``xfsprogs`` contains ``mkfs.xfs``, ``xfs_db``, and the
201``xfs_repair`` utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem.  It is
202architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
203work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
204later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
205
206PCMCIAutils
207-----------
208
209PCMCIAutils replaces ``pcmcia-cs``. It properly sets up
210PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
211for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
212subsystem is used.
213
214Quota-tools
215-----------
216
217Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
218the newer version 2 quota format.  Quota-tools version 3.07 and
219newer has this support.  Use the recommended version or newer
220from the table above.
221
222Intel IA32 microcode
223--------------------
224
225A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
226accessible as a normal (misc) character device.  If you are not using
227udev you may need to::
228
229  mkdir /dev/cpu
230  mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
231  chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
232
233as root before you can use this.  You'll probably also want to
234get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
235
236udev
237----
238
239``udev`` is a userspace application for populating ``/dev`` dynamically with
240only entries for devices actually present. ``udev`` replaces the basic
241functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
242devices.
243
244FUSE
245----
246
247Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later.  Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
248options ``direct_io`` and ``kernel_cache`` won't work.
249
250Networking
251**********
252
253General changes
254---------------
255
256If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
257consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
258
259Packet Filter / NAT
260-------------------
261The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
262kernel series (iptables).  It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
263for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
264
265PPP
266---
267
268The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
269enable it to operate over diverse media layers.  If you use PPP,
270upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
271
272If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
273which can be made by::
274
275  mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
276
277as root.
278
279NFS-utils
280---------
281
282In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
283about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS.  This
284information would be given to the kernel by ``mountd`` when the client
285mounted the filesystem, or by ``exportfs`` at system startup.  exportfs
286would take information about active clients from ``/var/lib/nfs/rmtab``.
287
288This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
289which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
290fail-over.  Even when the system is working well, ``rmtab`` suffers from
291getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
292
293With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
294when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
295appropriate export information to the kernel.  This removes the
296dependency on ``rmtab`` and means that the kernel only needs to know about
297currently active clients.
298
299To enable this new functionality, you need to::
300
301  mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
302
303before running exportfs or mountd.  It is recommended that all NFS
304services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
305that is possible.
306
307mcelog
308------
309
310On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
311events when ``CONFIG_X86_MCE`` is enabled. Machine check events are errors
312reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
313
314Kernel documentation
315********************
316
317Sphinx
318------
319
320Please see :ref:`sphinx_install` in :ref:`Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst <sphinxdoc>`
321for details about Sphinx requirements.
322
323Getting updated software
324========================
325
326Kernel compilation
327******************
328
329gcc
330---
331
332- <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
333
334Make
335----
336
337- <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
338
339Binutils
340--------
341
342- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
343
344Flex
345----
346
347- <https://github.com/westes/flex/releases>
348
349Bison
350-----
351
352- <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/>
353
354OpenSSL
355-------
356
357- <https://www.openssl.org/>
358
359System utilities
360****************
361
362Util-linux
363----------
364
365- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
366
367Kmod
368----
369
370- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kmod/>
371- <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git>
372
373Ksymoops
374--------
375
376- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
377
378Mkinitrd
379--------
380
381- <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
382
383E2fsprogs
384---------
385
386- <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
387
388JFSutils
389--------
390
391- <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
392
393Reiserfsprogs
394-------------
395
396- <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
397
398Xfsprogs
399--------
400
401- <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
402
403Pcmciautils
404-----------
405
406- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
407
408Quota-tools
409-----------
410
411- <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
412
413
414Intel P6 microcode
415------------------
416
417- <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/>
418
419udev
420----
421
422- <http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html>
423
424FUSE
425----
426
427- <https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse/releases>
428
429mcelog
430------
431
432- <http://www.mcelog.org/>
433
434Networking
435**********
436
437PPP
438---
439
440- <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
441
442NFS-utils
443---------
444
445- <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
446
447Iptables
448--------
449
450- <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
451
452Ip-route2
453---------
454
455- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/>
456
457OProfile
458--------
459
460- <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
461
462NFS-Utils
463---------
464
465- <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>
466
467Kernel documentation
468********************
469
470Sphinx
471------
472
473- <http://www.sphinx-doc.org/>
474