Building FreeVPS Kernel Binaries
(version 1.1)

FreeVPS kernel is a generic Linux kernel release 2.4.18 build 27 patched with the FreeVPS patch.

To build FreeVPS kernel binary packages, you need to:

1. Download required sources:

   1. The make_rpm script and the spec file for your kernel:
      http://www.freevps.com/download/make_rpm/make_rpm
      http://www.freevps.com/download/make_rpm/freevps-kernel-1.1.0.spec

   2. The latest freevps patch release, or snapshot:
      http://www.freevps.com/download/releases/freevps-1.1.gz - the latest patch release;
      or
      http://www.freevps.com/download/snapshots/freevps-xxxxxxxxxx.diff.gz - the latest patch snapshot, where xxxxxxxxxx is the latest build;

      Here,

      - releases is the directory where tested and last stable patches are located;
      - snapshots is the directory with the latest snaphots - kernel builds that are under development or testing.

   3. Kernel source rpm package from RedHat:
      wget ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.3/en/os/SRPMS/kernel-2.4.20-20.7.src.rpm
      wget http://updates.redhat.com/7.3/en/os/SRPMS/kernel-2.4.20-20.7.src.rpm

2. Build FreeVPS kernel binary packages:

   1. Place all downloaded files (the script, the spec file, the patch/snapshot and the kernel source) into one directory:

      # mkdir /var/tmp/freevps-kernel
      # cd /var/tmp/freevps-kernel
      # ls -la
      total 34872
      drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         4096 Dec  2 13:57 .
      drwxrwxrwt    4 root     root         4096 Dec  1 12:54 ..
      -rw-rw-rw-    1 root     root       140713 Nov 27 08:49 freevps-1.1.gz
      -rw-rw-rw-    1 root     root       148333 Nov 27 08:49 freevps-kernel-1.1.0.spec
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root     35352073 Oct 29 14:08 kernel-2.4.18-27.7.x.src.rpm
      -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          843 Dec  1 16:06 make_rpm
      

   2. By default, make_rpm creates packages for i386 platform. If you need to build packages for other platforms, change/add --target <CPU> in the make_rpm file (line 22).

      Supported platforms (<CPU>) are:
      i386
      i486
      i586 (supports SMP)
      i686 (supports SMP)
      athlon (supports SMP)
      

      All other platforms have not been tested yet.

      New patched kernel packages will be named as kernel-freevps-x.x-n. Here, x.x - package release,n - package build; To change package release and build specification, modify freevps-kernel-1.1.0.spec file (lines 29-31):

      %define vrelease n
      %define vsublevel x
      %define vversion x.%{vsublevel}
      

   3. Run the make_rpm utility:
      # ./make_rpm

      When the build is performed successfully, the binary packages can be found in your /usr/src/redhat/<CPU> directory, where <CPU> is i386, i486, i586, i686, or athlon.

      The script may display the following messages while running:

      Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/kernel-freevps-x.x-n.src.rpm
      Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/kernel-freevps-x.x-n.i386.rpm
      Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/kernel-freevps-source-x.x-n.i386.rpm
      Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/kernel-freevps-doc-x.x-n.i386.rpm
      Wrote: /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/kernel-freevps-BOOT-x.x-n.i386.rpm
      Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.78577
      + umask 022
      + cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD
      + cd kernel-freevps-x.x
      + rm -rf /var/tmp/kernel-2.4.18-freevps-x.x-n-root
      + exit 0
      

   4. Install the freevps kernel from a binary according to the instructions of the VPS Host Installation guide

      .