8.6 - If Something Goes Wrong

There are some categories of trouble that can occur when building a custom kernel:

config fails:

If the config command fails when you give it your kernel description, you have probably made a simple error somewhere. Fortunately, config will print the line number that it had trouble with, so you can quickly skip to it with vi. For example, if you see:

               config: line 27: syntax error
          

You can skip to the problem in vi by typing 27G in command mode. Make sure the keyword is typed correctly, by comparing it to the GENERIC kernel or another reference.

make fails:

If the make command fails, it usually signals an error in your kernel description, but not severe enough for config to catch it. Again, look over your configuration, and if you still cannot resolve the problem, send mail to the MicroBSD general questions mailing or go to our forums.

Installing the new kernel fails:

If the kernel compiled fine, but failed to install (the make install command failed), the first thing to check is if your system is running in a securelevel (see init). The kernel installation tries to remove the immutable flag from your kernel and set the immutable flag on the new one.You have to put the sistem in securelevel 0 to make the isntallation.

The kernel does not boot:

If your new kernel does not boot, or fails to recognize your devices, do not panic! Fortunately, MicroBSD has an excellent mechanism for recovering from incompatible kernels. Simply choose the kernel you want to boot from at the MicroBSD boot loader.Simply hit space when "boot>" apears ,type bsd.old and hit Enter

After booting with a good kernel you can check over your configuration file and try to build it again. One helpful resource is the /var/log/messages file which records, among other things, all of the kernel messages from every successful boot. Also, the dmesg command will print the kernel messages from the current boot.

This, and other documents, can be downloaded from MicroBSD.

For questions about MicroBSD, read the documentation before contacting <MicroBSD Support>.
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