Gentoo without udev? - OpenRC / netifrc problem

vyedmic · n00b Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 38

Hello,

Please excuse my n00biness.

Here's my problem:

I rent a Xen based VPS with SolusVM Gentoo image. I was not successful in upgrading the kernel and since the hosting provider is obviously not swamped by requests for Gentoo (I discovered that their Gentoo image was corrupted originally...) I don't feel the urge to try and bother them with helping me to create another image. The problem is the supplied kernel doesn't do devtmpfs. Therefore I am stuck on the supplied udev (which is 171-9).

The issue is that I can't update OpenRC, since the network scripts have been moved into netifrc, and that requires newer udev.

Is it possible to run a Gentoo server without udev? Will the /dev get populated by kernel? Should there be a support for systems with older versions of udev in OpenRC? Shall I just be done with it and never update @world?

Thanks for reading and any feedback.

John R. Graham · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 11:54 pm Post subject:

Why can't you update openrc?

- John
_________________
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vyedmic · n00b Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 38

Because I lost my network scripts when I tried. They are now part of netifrc and that needs udev higher than 171-9.

khayyam · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:17 am Post subject:

vyedmic · n00b Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 38

Thanks khay. I'll do more research.

khayyam · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 2:43 am Post subject:

Cyker · Veteran Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1746

Can you use eudev instead?

vyedmic · n00b Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 38

If I'm not mistaken, eudev needs devtmpfs too.

After researching static-dev a little bit and looking at the /dev on this host I gave up and hardmasked >udev-171-r9, eudev, systemd, >openrc-0.11.8 and kmod. Let's see how long I will be able to keep on updating. Thanks a lot for suggestions.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:30 pm Post subject:

vyedmic,

You can have a static /dev on a server, then throw away udev.
However, I don't think you can do the switch without booting some rescue environment.

Its devtmpfs in the kernel that populates /dev. udev only manages /dev permissions and ods and ends.

You might have a static /dev under your udev /dev. Gentoo used to provide that.
However it will not contain /dev/sd* entries, so you cannot just use it.
_________________
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

bstaletic · Apprentice Joined: 05 Apr 2014 Posts: 253

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:51 pm Post subject:

bstaletic,

No, you need to make /dev special entries in /dev with mknod.
Until the entries exist, there is nothing to symlink to.
_________________
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

bstaletic · Apprentice Joined: 05 Apr 2014 Posts: 253

That part is obvious. When you finish creating devices using mknod could you make appropriate symlinks to be able to use /dev/sd*?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:57 pm Post subject:

bstaletic,

I do not understand why you would want symlinks. I have a static /dev. A piece of it looks like

bstaletic · Apprentice Joined: 05 Apr 2014 Posts: 253

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:27 pm Post subject:

bstaletic,

The problem is that the default static /dev provided by gentoo is out of date by many years.
Its no use as is with current hardware. It can be fixed ... I've done it.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

UberLord · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 2:45 am Post subject:

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

On my server, I use devtmpfs. On its own! Everything works fine, I don't get magic disk ID symlinks but I don't need them anyway.

I had to lie to portage to achieve that (USE=mdev, followed by not using mdev); apparently it doesn't trust the kernel to identify its own devices accurately...

khayyam · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:59 am Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 12:37 pm Post subject:

UberLord,

I started playing with a static /dev when the udev source tree got merged inte systemd. At that time, it appeared that udev didn't have long to live as a usable seperate entitiy.
I have a strong preference for a systemd free system (this in the wrong thread to go into details) and I was curious to see how much of Linux still worked without a device manager of any sort. A trip dowm memory lane, if you like.

The problem with updating the static-dev ebuild is always what do you include. sd* is easy.
What about /dev/md*?
With or without partitions?
dm* ?
Then there is the virtio nodes ... where do you stop?

Users wanting a more complex setup need to make their own nodes and symlinks, sd* is an easy practice case.

@Ant P.
devtmpfs alone works but the permissions on the /dev nodes are left as created by the kernel, since you don't have a device manager to fix them.
You might want to look into that.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Anon-E-moose · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 2:12 pm Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 2:36 pm Post subject:

Anon-E-moose,

Like /sbin/hotplug :)
I've not exhumed that yet.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

eflothmeier · n00b Joined: 20 Sep 2014 Posts: 58 Location: Tucson, AZ

See:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-985832-start-0.html

A quote from one of the posts:

"This is part of the process to isolate netifrc completely to net-misc/netifrc
and to it's own repository, out from openrc, out from udev-init-scripts"

In my case I have a block as a result of a portage tree update:
,
,
,
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/openrc-0.13.9 [0.12.4]
[blocks B ] <sys-fs/udev-init-scripts-27 ("<sys-fs/udev-init-scripts-27" is blocking sys-apps/openrc-0.13.9)
,
,

The solution was to modify package.mask:
.
.
>sys-apps/openrc-0.12.4
.
.
Now
sys-fs/udev-init-scripts-27
and
sys-apps/openrc-0.13.9)

have disappeared for the slate of merges
Am I "sweeping dirt under the carpet"?
Will this come back to haunt me later?

Erich

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:52 am Post subject:

eflothmeier,

Yes. You are sweeping dirt under the carpet.

eflothmeier · n00b Joined: 20 Sep 2014 Posts: 58 Location: Tucson, AZ

I bet you're tired of telling people about
emerge -1. I searched the wiki and, so far,
haven't found any documentation on this
technique. The section of the Gentoo
handbook "when portage is complaining"
doesn't say anyting directly about it either.

Moreover, if one were to wholesale do
installs with emerge -1, that would be
damaging too.

Anyway, thanks for the tip

Erich