How to fix modprobe error from MPSS 4.4.1

Question

Reaching out to the wider group as I am totally stumped trying to install Intel MPSS 4.x for my Xeon Phi 7220P.

I followed the precise steps in this link: Intel MPSS Linux User Guide Rev 4.4.1, and did it 3 times to make sure I wasn't missing any steps or making mistakes, but keep getting the following error readout:

modprobe: WARNING: Module mic_x200_dma not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module scif_bus not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module vop_bus not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module cosm_bus not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module scif not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module vop not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module mic_cosm not found.
modprobe: WARNING: Module mic_x200 not found.

As a result of this, I cant do the basic MPSS commands such as micctrl -s etc nor use the Xeon Phi whatsoever.

I am running Centos 7 (862 kernel), and know its not listed in the Intel pdf, but did not think this should be causing an issue as it seems that the above kernel modules are simply not being installed seemingly from Intel MPSS - but not sure if this diagnosis is correct.

Would appreciate your help - many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It is complaining about that because at one point your kernel got updated from 3.10.0-514.el7 to a later version, (it happens automatically when you do a yum update, annoying I know)

Check your kernel version by running

uname -r

When you installed/compiled all the modules they were placed into /lib/modules/3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64 which is where the source code you have exported to.

You have 2 options:

• Recompile the source code to work for your current kernel version (which is a pain and has it's own problems)

• Revert your host kernel back to 3.10.0-514.el7 via grub config (example here) and everything will work nicely

I too struggled with this very much in the beginning and I had to read pretty much every line of source code and spend countless hours debugging until I found out. At this point there is nothing I do not know about the Xeon Phi x100/x200.

The documentation is not bad, but it didn't cover this bare essential, which is frustrating.