* dann frazier <1918...@bugs.launchpad.net> [2021-03-17 20:30]: > On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 10:05 AM Ryan Harper <1918...@bugs.launchpad.net> > wrote: > > > > Hi Dan, > > > > Could you summarize the problem with flash-kernel and this system? > > Sure. flash-kernel recognizes Mustang boards and will generate uImage > and uInitrd files for it, which are required for booting with u-boot > firmware. However, these boards can also run in UEFI mode, which > Date's board does. In UEFI mode, flash-kernel still knows it is on a > Mustang and generates uImage/uInitrd files - which won't be used for > anything in that case, they are just wasting space, but does not cause > it to fail. This does cause problems in a curtin install though. > Curtin has logic to divert away tools that get executed during > initramfs hooks, to avoid failures in packaging scripts before an > initramfs is generated. flash-kernel in particular will fail if an > initramfs is not found on this system. Curtin tries to be smart here > and only divert flash-kernel 1) if it is installed and 2) on systems > that are*not* in UEFI mode, and both of these scenarios have escapes: > > 1) flash-kernel could get installed post-divert. In that case, > flash-kernel's own postinst will cause it to run and then fail. This > happens today if you start with a cloud image w/o flash-kernel > pre-baked because Ubuntu's kernel recommends flash-kernel, causing it > to be installed along with the kernel. Official cloud images happen to
Hrm, so if we take a squashfs rootfs (with no flash-kernel present) chroot into it and install the linux-image-generic package pulling in flash-kernel this fails due to postinst of flash-kernel expecting initramfs to already be generated? This doesn't seem like a curtin bug. > have flash-kernel pre-baked which avoids this issue. I think curtin > should work whether or not the kernel recommends flash-kernel and > whether or not curtin is pre-baked (in fact, I'd like for us to stop > pre-baking it - the vast majoriy of ARM servers do not need it). > > 2) If flash-kernel is installed, and curtin finds we're in UEFI mode, > it chooses not to divert flash-kernel. flash-kernel will therefore run > and fail on UEFI Mustangs. I don't think that's true. The logic for disabling initramfs tools always runs regardless of UEFI mode and arch. See curtin/commands/curthooks.py:builtin_curthooks() lines 1692- 1699 > > The way I've personally framed this issue is that Ubuntu should not be > trying to install flash-kernel on ARM systems that don't require it, > which is the reason I've added the various tasks here. > - cloud images shouldn't prebake it OK > - the kernel should allow non-flash-kernel bootloaders to satisfy its > recommends OK Thanks. I replied to your later post without seeing this first. This helps a lot. > - curtin shouldn't install flash-kernel on efi-based arm64 servers. > It does this today, but - in what seems like a bug, only in the > ephemeral and not the target. Yeah; I suspect flash-kernel being pre-baked into images hid this for some time. As I mentioned in the other reply, I do think that lines 57-58 in curtin/deps/__init__.py which bring in flash-kerenl to the epheramal can be removed. And it sounds like we'd move that logic instead to the install-missing-packages arch_packages where we ensure s390-tools/zipl are install for s390, there we'd add the same logic to append flash-kernel where needed for the target OS. > > A separate issue is that flash-kernel should know to just exit if it's > running on an EFI system and not bother creating the unused > uImage/uInitrd - Date recently got a patched merged into Debian's f-k > to do that. That would seemingly also avoid the curtin issues here, > but only if we continue to install flash-kernel all the time. OK. In summary curtin will need: move ephemeral deps.py flash-kernel to arch-packages in install-missing-packages with the same logic guarding when to add the dep. It's not clear to me why curtin should work around the packaging bugs around flash-kernel and I would suggest that flash-kernel be kept in the cloud images until the packging deps/bugs around it are fixed. Does that make sense? Ryan -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1918427 Title: curtin: install flash-kernel in arm64 UEFI unexpected To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-images/+bug/1918427/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
