TNSR Home+Lab - apt update/upgrade safety

[mmercier]

Hello,

With TNSR Home+Lab, is it safe to run:

apt update
apt upgrade

i.e. Will running the above have any impact on the TNSR software?

Thanks,
Mike

[jimp]

That is safe (and we encourage doing so!) the only thing you might need to watch out for is that if there is a kernel update, it will need to recompile the kernel driver modules. That should be all automatic when it happens.

Current versions should catch that and do it on their own but if not you can run sudo apt-get --reinstall install netgate-dpdk-kmods and it'll rebuild the kernel modules.

If there is a kernel update, be sure to reboot afterward.

You can always boot off the old kernel/modules if it fails.

[mmercier]

@jimp said in TNSR Home+Lab - apt update/upgrade safety:

sudo apt-get --reinstall install netgate-dpdk-kmods

I performed an apt update; apt upgrade, after reboot I seem to be missing the physical interfaces. I tried your suggestion and see the following:

fesadmin@rtrexllab01:~$ sudo apt-get --reinstall install netgate-dpdk-kmods
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Reinstallation of netgate-dpdk-kmods is not possible, it cannot be downloaded.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.

In the CLI

fesadmin@rtrexllab01:~$ sudo clixon_cli

Netgate TNSR Version: 22.10-2

This system is not configured for package updates.
For information see 'show documentation'

rtrexllab01 tnsr# configure
rtrexllab01 tnsr(config)# int
 BondEthernet0         BondEthernet0.610     BondEthernet1         bond                  bridge
 clear                 local0                loopback              memif                 subif
 tap                   wireguard
rtrexllab01 tnsr(config)# interface
rtrexllab01 tnsr(config)# show configuration running cli intf
interface BondEthernet0
    enable
exit
interface BondEthernet0.610
    enable
    ip address 10.240.1.1/24
exit
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/0
    enable
    ip address 10.254.2.41/29
exit
interface GigabitEthernet1/0/1
    bond 1
exit
interface TenGigabitEthernet2/0/0
    enable
    bond 0
exit
interface TenGigabitEthernet2/0/1
    enable
    bond 0
exit

NOTE: This is the TNSR Home+Lab edition, I do not have a license.

Thanks,
Mike

[cloudacs]

You need to compile the igb_uio.ko by your self with the new kernel you are running. When you compile the igb_uio source code, you need to patch the igb_uio.c if your kernel version is 5.19 or later.

[blunden]

Is this an intentional limitation with the Home+Lab "license" or just an unfortunate byproduct of the Netgate TNSR repo requiring a license to access? My guess is that it could be the latter, but I'd be interested to know. :)

I can understand preventing rolling updates of the rest of the stack in order to maintain it as a value-add for business customers. That's fair. Making kernel updates (i.e. mostly security updates) extra cumbersome isn't a great look though.

[jimp]

@blunden said in TNSR Home+Lab - apt update/upgrade safety:

Is this an intentional limitation with the Home+Lab "license" or just an unfortunate byproduct of the Netgate TNSR repo requiring a license to access? My guess is that it could be the latter, but I'd be interested to know. :)

I can understand preventing rolling updates of the rest of the stack in order to maintain it as a value-add for business customers. That's fair. Making kernel updates (i.e. mostly security updates) extra cumbersome isn't a great look though.

It's specific to that driver (igb_uio) and its requirement that it has to be built against the installed kernel, but the sources for that driver are only available to those with access to updates.

We have since changed the default driver to vfio-pci since it works well with an even wider variety of hardware and that driver also isn't subject to that limitation.

https://docs.netgate.com/tnsr/en/latest/advanced/dataplane-dpdk.html#vfio-pci

[blunden]

@jimp said in TNSR Home+Lab - apt update/upgrade safety:

@blunden said in TNSR Home+Lab - apt update/upgrade safety:

Is this an intentional limitation with the Home+Lab "license" or just an unfortunate byproduct of the Netgate TNSR repo requiring a license to access? My guess is that it could be the latter, but I'd be interested to know. :)

I can understand preventing rolling updates of the rest of the stack in order to maintain it as a value-add for business customers. That's fair. Making kernel updates (i.e. mostly security updates) extra cumbersome isn't a great look though.

It's specific to that driver (igb_uio) and its requirement that it has to be built against the installed kernel, but the sources for that driver are only available to those with access to updates.

We have since changed the default driver to vfio-pci since it works well with an even wider variety of hardware and that driver also isn't subject to that limitation.

https://docs.netgate.com/tnsr/en/latest/advanced/dataplane-dpdk.html#vfio-pci

Thank you for the detailed response! That's great to hear.

In other words, there should now be nothing that prevents home lab users from updating the kernel?

[jimp]

No current limitations that I'm aware of, but we haven't had a similar update come up to get feedback about yet.