Thanks Akemi for the suggestions (to a SL/rhel newbie :) -- will do both.

On 3/1/14, Akemi Yagi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 9:33 AM, Boryeu Mao <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Summary of building cloop
>>
>> The build from the alioth source tar (thanks for the pointer Vladimir)
>> turns out to be rather straightforward, with only one minor hurdle
>> when the configuration script quit with an error message that 'the
>> zlib library is required'.  I was stumped because rpm query showed
>> that the package zlib is installed in the system (livecd-iso-to-disk
>> from SL-65-x86_64-liveDVD.iso).  After a bit of wild goose chase I
>> discovered serendipitously that the missing party was actually zlib.h
>> (in package zlib-devel).  The build went on uneventfully afterwards,
>> for both the kernel module and the 3 utility programs.  For modprobe
>> to find the module, I placed it in /lib/modules/`uname
>> -r`/kernel/misc/.
>
> May I suggest that you put your module in /lib/modules/`uname
> -r`/extra/ to make it distinct from the distro-supplied ones.
>
> Another suggestion is to consider making a kABI-tracking (kmod)
> package. This way, you would not have to rebuild for each kernel
> update.
>
> Akemi
>