Inserting network driver into initrd.img

[Dan Carpenter]

> 2.4.21-4ELBOOT

That's just the stock rhel3 kernel.  It's pretty ancient these days. 
Have you considered just using a more recent update?  The current one
is update 6.

> Thanks for the tip about loading the -BOOT kernel.  That made debugging the
> driver easier.  I had compatibility issues which I've been able to resolve
> by compiling the module correctly for the 2.4.21-4ELBOOT kernel.  So, I have
> a network driver (bcm5700) that works when I use kernel 2.4.21-4ELBOOT.  But
> now, dhclient complains about CONFIG_FILTER or CONFIG_PACKET not being set
> in the kernel.  So dhcp doesn't work.  This might be a separate issue
> however.

I'm not very familiar with anything older than update 3.

With the -BOOT kernel `dhclient` doesn't work so you have to use `pump` instead.

>
> So, I still have the same symptoms as before with my installation disk: it
> cannot find a suitable driver for the network device.
>

Does the driver even get loaded?  You can see that on tty3 and tty4.

> Let me back up a bit and see if there's another way to get where I need to
> go:  What I want to do is setup an installation procedure for our
> manufacturing people to install RH via a kickstart file and some network
> server.  In the past, we were able to use the installation CDROM to boot
> from, and then we'd access a kickstart file via nfs; installation discs were
> also available via nfs.

That's fine.  These days you can generally set your servers to boot
over the network off PXE.  That eliminates the need to use the CDROMs.

> Now, with the new server we are using, the old
> installation disc does not have the correct network driver.  Thus, my
> efforts at adding the driver to the installation disc.
>
> Is this the only way to do what I want?
>

What you're doing is a reasonable approach.

Look through the output on tty3.  If the PCI IDs you added are correct
then it will list that it has to load that module.  If it the
modules.cgz is correct then it will load the module.  If it loads the
module but it still doesn't work then there is a problem with the
module.

regards,
dan carpenter