Managing kernel-updates in rpm

[Saket Sinha]

Hi,

       We have a rpm which installs a linux kernel driver. Now this
driver has some kernel-level dependencies especially Development Tools
(kernel-headers etc) such that they depend on running kernel version.

Now in the rpm we provide drivers for different kernel versions since
the user can update the kernel. In the rpm's SPEC file, we match the
running kernel version with our driver for that particular version and
install it.

If the user has updated its kernel to such a version whose driver is
not present in the RPM, the installation fails. We tell user in the
error message to update the kernel to a supported version.

Now this is very cumbersome and we plan to replace it with installing
a yum plugin through our rpm which allows user to update the kernel
level dependencies.

Is this a right approach?

Regards,
Saket Sinha