Control: tag -1 + moreinfo Control: severity -1 wishlist
On 9/7/26 00:35, Benjamin Drung wrote:
Package: busybox-static Version: 1:1.38.0-3 Severity: normal X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected] Dear Maintainer, The Dracut 72-nbd autopkgtest fails with busybox-static. This can also be reproduced with the upstream dracut project:
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The nbd-client busybox applet lacks the options -check and -systemd-mark. I reported that upstream at https://github.com/vda-linux/busybox_mirror/issues/35 The dracut busybox module skips intstalling the nbd-client applet. This has no effect when using busybox-static because busybox-static is built with CONFIG_FEATURE_PREFER_APPLETS enabled. Busybox sh will prefer the incompatible nbd-client applet instead of using the real nbd-client binary.
What's your intended usage scenario for busybox-static to begin with? Why are you trying to use it in context of dracut? IIRC, initially, when busybox-static package has been created, the intention was to have a single utility for some system rescue operation, so no matter how damaged the host system is, you drop a single self- contained binary there and will be able to do maximum possible. This is why it has PREFER_APPLETS enabled - so there's no need to look into $PATH at all, because /bin might be damaged already. For initrd, please use regular, non-static, busybox build. Since many other binaries in initrd already require libc, there's no need to keep *another* copy of libc within busybox binary. And the regular busybox is build without PREFER_APPLETS option, so you can use a more advanced version of some utility. Arguable one might ask why one needs nbd-client for rescue purposes, but it's a different question.
The blkid applet had the same issue and was disabled for busybox-static.
No. blkid applet has been disabled before (or hasn't been implemented, I don't remember already and am too lazy to check), and it broke existing usages when I enabled it - exactly because of this PREFER_APPLETS knob. At the time, we needed a quick fix for a new breakage. Yes, the usage was - also iirc - the same, I wouldn't use bb-static in initrd since it is not supposed to be used there. But we broke other stuff and we had to fix it. Here, we aren't breaking anything. Please stop trying to use bb-static for initrd. Thanks, /mjt
