Automatic build and install of the Nvidia kernel module/driver using Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS).
Red Hat based systems ship with an nvidia-compatible graphics kernel module (, and user space X11 driver) called nouveau. Keeping this default configuration is recommended because nouveau is supported by Red Hat and is provided with each new kernel update.
However, in some situations the nvidia 3rd party proprietary graphics kernel module (and X11 driver) from nvidia is , nvidia.ko, and user space X11 driver, nvidia_drv.so, are needed instead. This 3rd party kernel module software is not supplied or supported by Red Hat. With each new kernel, a 3rd party kernel module (like the proprietary nvidia one.ko) needs to be rebuilt. This process can be tedious and confusing (eg, why did my graphical login break after a reboot?). There is a framework named "DKMS" which stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support. This enables the automatic rebuild of 3rd party kernel modules during the RPM install of a new kernel (ie, DKMS builds the nvidia driver as part of the kernel RPM install). This is done via hooks which are present in the kernel post-install RPM scriplet.
This document describes how to install the nvidia kernel module with DKMS support, so a manual rebuild of the nvidia kernel module is no longer required for every new kernel.
As of 2018-Dec, this process has only been tested on RHEL 6. I believe the process should be very similar on CentOS 7 (or RHEL 7), but I haven't tested it myself yet.
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1. Find the nvidia graphics (video) model number.
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$ cd /var/tmp
$ curl -sLO 'http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/410.78/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-410.78.run
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'You can view the help info (optional) with this command (use -A to view "Advanced help options). But just view the help options, don't run the installer yet.
$ /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-[version].run --help
$ /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-[version].run -A
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ksa@ksa-linux01 $ w
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
ksa tty1 :0 Tue07 27:54m 0.00s 0.04s pam: gdm-password
If no one is logged in at ":0", or you get the OK to stop the graphical X server, then switch to runlevel 3:
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$ sudo /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-[version].run --accept-license --dkms --run-nvidia-xconfig --no-questions...
$ sudo reboot
or
$ sudo init 5
Since there are two distinct parts to the nvidia and nouveau software – user mode (X11 driver) and kernel mode (kernel driver), there may be circumstances where a reboot is required.
There also may be rare circumstances where blacklisting the nouveau kernel module is required (which includes creating the appropriate configuration in /etc/modprobe.d/, rebuilding the initial ram disk (initrd) using the dracut command, and adding 'blacklist=nouveau' to the /boot/grub/grub.conf file).
Additional Information below:
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For an explanation of the symlinks symbolic links in the weak-updates subdirectory, see the link under the "Kernel Module Weak Updates" References section below.
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Taylor runs during the night, and taylor runs 'yum upgrade' (this is for RHEL 5 and RHEL 6 only. For CentOS 7, Chef is used instead). When there is a new kernel available, yum will install it. When it gets installed, the postinstall scripts in the RPM are run. Many things are run in the these postinstall scripts, including a script called '/sbin/new-kernel-pkg'. /sbin/new-kernel-pkg looks in the /etc/kernel/postinst.d/ directory and runs anything in there. /sbin/new-kernel-pkg finds a script called dkms inside the /etc/kernel/postinst.d/ directory. The /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms script runs the /usr/lib/dkms/dkms_autoinstaller script, which in turn runs the /usr/sbin/dkms script. The dkms man page describes in detail how the build happens with the /usr/sbin/dkms script.
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cat /etc/kernel/postinst.d/notify #!/bin/sh cat <<EOF | mail -r unix-admin@slac.stanford.edu -s "$1 installed on `hostname`" ksa@slac.stanford.edu New kernel was installed on `hostname` at `date`. $1 $2 EOF |
References:
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Log file of automatic nvidia build:
DKMS logs are saved here:
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$ ls -l /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 5 root bin 4096 Jan 17 02:22 410.78
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root bin 40 Jan 17 02:22 kernel-2.6.32-754.10.1.el6.x86_64-x86_64 -> 410.78/2.6.32-754.10.1.el6.x86_64/x86_64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root bin 39 Dec 7 15:45 kernel-2.6.32-754.3.5.el6.x86_64-x86_64 -> 410.78/2.6.32-754.3.5.el6.x86_64/x86_64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root bin 39 Dec 7 15:51 kernel-2.6.32-754.9.1.el6.x86_64-x86_64 -> 410.78/2.6.32-754.9.1.el6.x86_64/x86_64 |
And here is the log for the automatic dkms build of the nvidia driver which was triggered by the install of the kernel-2.6.32-754.10.1.el6.x86_64 RPM:
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$ ls -l /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/410.78/2.6.32-754.10.1.el6.x86_64/x86_64
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root bin 4096 Jan 17 02:22 log
drwxr-xr-x 2 root bin 4096 Jan 17 02:22 module |
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References:
DKMS
- See the dkms manual page, using the command: 'man dkms'
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support
- https://github.com/dell/dkms
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