You install Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) for Linux 14.2 MP1 or lower on an Ubuntu 18.04 system. In spite of having installed the necessary prerequisites, you find that SEP for Linux auto-compile fails and its kernel modules are not loaded. An attempt to manually compile its kernel modules similarly fails.

~/sepfl-kbuild.log shows auto-compile failure even in combination with a 14.2 RU1 pre-release build:

               ~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.c: In function ‘symev_evsvtimes’:
/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.c:3893:33: error: incompatible types when assigning to type ‘struct timespec’ from type ‘struct timespec64’
         EVPVT(evp)->atime_saved = EVPVT(evp)->dentry->d_inode->i_atime;
                                 ^
/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.c:3894:33: error: incompatible types when assigning to type ‘struct timespec’ from type ‘struct timespec64’
         EVPVT(evp)->ctime_saved = EVPVT(evp)->dentry->d_inode->i_ctime;
                                 ^
/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.c:3895:33: error: incompatible types when assigning to type ‘struct timespec’ from type ‘struct timespec64’
         EVPVT(evp)->mtime_saved = EVPVT(evp)->dentry->d_inode->i_mtime;
                                 ^
/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.c: In function ‘symev_evrstimes’:
/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.c:3939:25: error: incompatible types when assigning to type ‘struct timespec64’ from type ‘struct timespec’
             ia.ia_atime = EVPVT(evp)->atime_saved;
                         ^
scripts/Makefile.build:317: recipe for target '/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.o' failed
make[2]: *** [/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev/symev.o] Error 1
Makefile:1500: recipe for target '_module_/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev' failed
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/marc/Downloads/14.2.2825.1000/src/ap-kernelmodule-14.2.2825-1000/symev] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.18.0-041800-generic'
Makefile:312: recipe for target 'custom' failed
make: *** [custom] Error 2
Thu Feb 14 13:43:25 GMT 2019: Build failed

• SEP for Linux 14.2 MP1 or lower
• Ubuntu 18.04 (Kernel version 4.15)

As frequently happens with new Linux kernel releases, there have been structural changes that will require corresponding code changes to our kernel modules.

This issue has been resolved in SEP for Linux 14.2 RU1. Please subscribe to Download the latest version of Endpoint Protection to be notified when it will be available for download.

Versions of Ubuntu 18.04 running kernel versions higher than 4.15 will not be supported in 14.2 RU1.  You can check your kernel version by executing "uname -r" in a terminal window.  Support for kernel versions > 4.15 will be available in a future release of SEP for Linux.