how to solve Kernel configuration is invalid issues - linux-kernel

Question

I'm trying to build module.
But here's some issues.
ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.
include/generated/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.
Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it.
WARNING: Symbol version dump ./Module.symvers
is missing; modules will have no dependencies and modversions.`
And here's my makefile
ifeq ($(KERNELRELEASE),)
KERNELDIR ?= /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
PWD := $(shell pwd)
modules:
$(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) modules
modules_install:
$(MAKE) -C $(KERNELDIR) M=$(PWD) modules_install
clean:
rm -rf *.o *~ core .depend .*.cmd *.ko *.mod.c .tmp_versions
.PHONY: modules modules_install clean
else
# called from kernel build system: just declare what our modules are
obj-m := hello.o hellop.o seq.o jit.o jiq.o sleepy.o complete.o \
silly.o faulty.o kdatasize.o kdataalign.o
endif
I tried building like this:
export KERNELDIR=/path/to/extern/linux/source
make
How can I solve this problem?

Answer 1

Okay, so I would try to re-install the Linux-headers.
prerequisites
terminal access(bash presumably)
root privileges
(or a user who can do 'sudo')
First, we try to re install (using APT) the linux-headers package but adding your specific version. Which is determined by the following command: $(uname -r)
and to do it all in one line:
sudo apt install --reinstall linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Then, as we talk about the kernel, and making changes to it (quite major too, a reinstall of a kernel that is) we want to reboot as soon as the APT command is done:
sudo reboot
If you get it couldn't find any package, (or similar) (from apt)
try apt update and re-try the above.
Logs
Do check /var/log/kern.log for any messages that is,
cat /var/log/kern.log

Answer 2

I solved this problem with the following commands:
From your built sources take the most recent .config file with kernel configuration. Copy it to kernel-source directory (e.g.: build/tmp/work-shared/lmm-corei7/kernel-source).
Run make prepare.

Answer 3

I spent hours on the same problem, having the same error message : ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid...
The solution was so simple...
I was running sudo make and this created the errors.
After having done what is suggested by William Martens (reinstall the headers and reboot), I logged as root, and the module built perfectly.
To be sure, I did a second test with an admin account and sudo make, and it failed again. So I am sure this is the reason. I noticed also that after a fail, I have to reinstall the headers otherwise, even in root, it fails.
This happened on a Debian 11 with kernel 5.10.0-16-amd64.