Installing DKMS

[galacticrewind]

I am installing some software on a CentOS 6.0 system. I am very new to Linux.

The installation instructions for the software I am adding to my system recommend that I install DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support) before I install the software. Is this actually not needed on a CentOS system because CentOS already uses the RPM (Red Hat Package Management) system with Yum as a front end to it? Or is using DKMS still a good idea because parts of this software i am installing will be building and upgrading kernel modules?

Finally, when I issue the command 'yum install dkms', I get "No package dkms available. Error: Nothing to do." I thought that maybe I was getting that error because I was not yet configured to use the Yum server, but when I look in /etc/yum.repos.d, I can see the three files CentOS-Base.repo, CentOS-Debuginfo.repo, and CentOS-Media.repo, so I think it is all set up. Is it possible that in order to get the DKMS application, I will first need to set up a fourth repository?

SUMMARY OF QUESTIONS
Because CentOS already has RPM, is it unnecessary for me to install DKMS? (Remember that I want to have kernel update support.)
Even if it is unnecessary for me to install DKMS, I was having trouble trying to install it, so how do I get this to install? Do I need to set up some other repositories?

[TrevorH]

Perhaps it might be better to take a step back and tell us what the software is that you wish to install. Perhaps that is already available in a packaged format for RHEL/CentOS.

[galacticrewind]

I am installing the "client additions" portion of the Oracle VM VirtualBox software. In other words, the CentOS operating system is installed on a virtual machine, and I am going to now install the "client additions" onto that virtual machine. The virtual machine is installed on Windows Vista. So it is CentOS running virtual inside of Windows Vista, and I am trying to install DKMS onto the CentOS BEFORE I install the client additions onto CentOS.

DKMS is recommended because parts of the Oracle VM VirtualBox software are kernel modules. Based on what I understand, if at a later date the kernel gets updated but I do not have DKMS installed, then I will be required to reinstall the VirtualBox kernel modules. But if I first install DKMS, then each time the kernel is updated, DKMS will automatically rebuild all the device-drivers for me.

I was actually considering NOT installing DKMS simply to get the experience of having to re-install dependent kernel modules after a kernel update. So that's one reason why I might want to just skip the DKMS. But even if I do skip installing DKMS, I would still want to know how to install it if I decide to do it later.

Does the RPM do the same thing that DKMS does, or does it do something different? And how do I install DKMS? Is there something already available in a packaged format for RHEL/CentOS that would also work, as you indicated might be the case?

[toracat]

In that situation, dkms may be useful to have. And yes, you can install it by using yum. Please have a through read on the "3rd party repository" section of the CentOS wiki [url=http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories]Repositories[/url]. dkms is available from the [url=http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/RPMForge]RPMforge[/url] (now called [b]repoforge[/b]) repository.

[galacticrewind]

Thank you for your help.

[nouvo09]

All dkms packages are buggy with centos6 as well as Fedora XX, but the last one (2.2.0.2) that you can find at:

http://linux.dell.com/dkms

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702483

[pschaff]

Thanks for the tip. Updated the [url=http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Virtualization/VirtualBox]VirtualBox Wiki page[/url] with a warning and a link here.