0.8.4: Fedora 32 and dkms 2.8.2 build - nothing happens

[space88man]

System information

Type	Version/Name
Distribution Name	Fedora
Distribution Version	32
Linux Kernel	5.7.7, 5.7.8
Architecture	x86_64
ZFS Version	0.8.4
SPL Version	0.8.4

Working dkms RPM: dkms-2.8.1-4.20200214git5ca628c.fc32.noarch
Failing dkms RPM: dkms-2.8.2-1.fc32.noarch

Describe the problem you're observing

When zfs-dkms is built with dkms 2.8.2 nothing happens. No error messages, process exits with code 0.

# With dkms 2.8.2
# dkms build  -m zfs -v 0.8.4 -k 5.7.8-200.fc32.x86_64
# # absolutely nothing happens

# With dkms 2.8.1
Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel.  Skipping...                                                                                     
                                                                        
Running the pre_build script:                                           
checking for gawk... gawk                                               
checking metadata... META file                                          
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu                       
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu                        
checking target system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu                                                                                               
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no                                                                       
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes                                                                                           
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /bin/install -c                                                                                         
checking whether build environment is sane... yes                       
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p     
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes                               
checking for gcc... gcc                                                                                                                          
checking whether the C compiler works... yes                                                                                                     
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out               

Describe how to reproduce the problem

Build zfs-dkms with dkms 2.8.2

Include any warning/errors/backtraces from the system logs

None

Additional Information

• When dkms is reverted to dkms-2.8.1-4.20200214git5ca628c.fc32.noarch build/install works
• This may not be a ZFS bug but just some weird interaction with dkms 2.8.2

[almereyda]

I can confirm that reverting to dkms-2.8.1-4.20200214git5ca628c.fc32.noarch.rpm allows to build the ZFS Kernel modules, whereas dkms-2.8.2-1 silently fails with it.

As a surprise, the module will not exist either way, and loading the module fails.

# modprobe zfs
modprobe: FATAL: Module zfs not found in directory /lib/modules/5.7.8-200.fc32.x86_64

This will not happen, when one chooses to run dkms install zfs/0.8.4 after the build, prior to running modprobe.

---

https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=1605 lists user slaanesh as the author of the latest 2.8.2. build. Unfortunately I cannot check https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/ for more package maintainer information right now, due to a datacentre move that did not include the packages app (yet).

---

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/dkms/c/5b970b91cbd48af037115f0f5b0a066021f5c88f?branch=master

As the upgrade of the package itself only changed the version numbers and a little documentation, it appears the error is not on Fedora's side, either, and remains with dkms upstream. A note of this has been filed into https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1856848

This here is then the same as dell/dkms#127 there.

[almereyda]

For other people landing here, i.e. via some search results, it appears useful to leave a note, that one will also wish to prevent the package to update, until this issue is resolved.

After reinstalling the desired version with

dnf install dkms-2.8.1-4.20200214git5ca628c.fc32.noarch

each invocation of dnf update needs to exclude that package.

dnf --exclude dkms update

To keep this exclusion permanently, it can be added to the dnf configuration.

echo "exclude = dkms" >> /etc/dnf/dnf.conf

[scaronni]

Just pushed DKMS version 2.8.3 with the fix, will update Fedora/EPEL immediately.

[space88man]

Closing as it is a DKMS bug. Resolved in DKMS upstream, and newer DKMS packages v2.8.3 are available in Fedora's Koji.