kmod driver incompatibilities with 11.1R created packages used on 11.2R

[Kevin Oberman]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 2:39 AM, Dave Cottlehuber <dch at skunkwerks.at> wrote:

> We've probably all seen the problems that non-developer users have run
> into with the various packages that have a dependency on kernel versions,
> when using the official pkg.freebsd.org built versions.
>
> We know that the problem will go away as soon as 11.1R is EOL end
> September, but in the interim I can imagine this must be really frustrating
> for people who don't have a familiarity with building from sources. Is
> there anything we can do to help them? they're often newcomers to FreeBSD
> so their new user experience is crap.
>
> Here's a few ideas, but there may be better ones:
>
> - put a note in pkg-message informing users of the issue and a link to a
> forums.freebsd.org post on how to build it manually
> - add something to the port's pkg-install script to only display that
> message on < 11.2R kernels
> - provide an alternative pkg repo so they don't have to build from source
> (possibly community supported)
>
> I'm specifically thinking of x11/nvidia-driver here but there are
> presumably other packages impacted from https://www.freshports.org/kld/
>
> https://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html#sup
>
> A+
> Dave
>

The only other case I have seen reported (and reported frequently) is
emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod. It is particularly nasty in that booting
with the 11.1 package will produce an unbootable system.  While it can be
easily worked around by interrupting the boot and unloading the vbox kernel
modules before allowing the actual boot, it is very unpleasant for those
unaware of the issue. For those unfamiliar with the process of building a
port, some simple instructions would do the job :
1. If you don't keep a copy of the ports tree, pull down the required bits
(ports/Mk, ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod (and I'm not sure what else)
2. cd /usr/ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod
3. pkg delete -f virtualbox-ose-kmod
4. make install
5. (Optional) rm -r  /usr/ports

Note that I have no systems that use vbox (or nvidia-driver) that also lack
full port trees, so I have NOT tried this. It's just a quick overview of
the parts that I see and I may be missing something. Doing an "snv co" on
the ports tree would easy, but requires a great deal of disk space that
some might lack.

A tiny temporary repo with just kernel module packages built on 11.2
(probably by hand)  would be a better solution, I think. It would only need
to exist until October. That, combined with a note about using it, would be
a simple solution and fix this nasty mess.
--
Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com
PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683