Firewire Modules not loading or not compatible with the kernel version

The Firewire modules are currently not available for all the kernel versions of Red Hat 4.0, and I really doubt if Oracle is going to make available the Firewire modules for them. For example, my installed kernel version is 2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL, but there are no firewire modules available for this version of kernel and the only closest module available is oracle-firewire-modules-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL-1286-1.i686.rpm. v Obviously, the versions are not compatible and the modules wouldn't load, even if you install and when attempted you are likely to see:

# rpm -ivhi --force oracle-firewire-modules-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL-1286-1.i686.rpm

Preparing... ########################################### [100%] 1:oracle-firewire-modules########################################### [100%]

# modprobe ohci1394 ; modprobe sbp2 FATAL: Module ohci1394 not found. FATAL: Module sbp2 not found. #

There are possibly two options to fix this.

Option 1: The first one is to load the kernel installed by the firewire module, if you are not very particular about the kernel version. Once the firewire modules are installed, the /etc/grub.conf is populated with the Firewire kernel and which looks some thing like this:

#cat /etc/grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
# # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda2
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

hiddenmenu
title Enterprise (2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.ELhugemem)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.ELhugemem ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.ELhugemem.img
title Enterprise-smp (2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.ELsmp)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.ELsmp ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.ELsmp.img
title Enterprise-up (2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL) root (hd0,1) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet initrd /boot/initrd- 2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

=========================================================

The entries in orange color are the ones which have been populated by the Firewire modules/kernel. To load your OS using this kernel, you simply have to update the grub.conf to use that kernel to load by modifying the default=0 to default=2. That should all, when you boot next time using the Firewire modules/kernel, you should be able to load the sbp2, ohci1394 and ieee1394 modules without any problems.

Option 2:

1. When you install oracle-firewire-modules-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL-1286-1.i686.rpm rpm it will install the modules under /lib/modules/2.6.9-42.0.3.EL/kernel/drivers/ieee1394, but your existing kernel would be as indicated by `uname -r`. In my case it was 2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL.
2. Make a directory ieee1394 under /lib/modules/2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL/kernel/drivers
3. copy the modules which have been installed under /lib/modules/2.6.9-42.0.3.EL/kernel/drivers/ieee1394 to /lib/modules/2.6.9- 42.0.0.0.1.EL/kernel/drivers/ieee1394.
4. Then run the following commands:
   

#depmod -a ieee1394.ko;modprobe ieee1394
#depmod -a ohci1394.ko;modprobe ohci1394
#depmod -a pcilynx.ko;modprobe pcilynx
#depmod -a raw1394.ko;modprobe raw1394
==============================================

Update the etc/modprobe.conf. For example, the entry in the /etc/modprobe.conf file would be: options sbp2 exclusive_login=0

Now you should be able to load the Firewire modules without changing your kernel.

==================================================================

Checking the integrity of the downloaded firewire module:

$md5sum oracle-firewire-modules-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL-1286-1.i686.rpm
7fe3c83291ffab284f6f941b717dacb1 oracle-firewire-modules-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL-1286-1.i686.rpm

Verify the above code (7fe3c83291ffab284f6f941b717dacb1) with that
indicated in the source website.