Hi Ross,

I really appreciate the feedback! I agree that passing timestamp
information is the proper solution here. I'll create a new patch that
does this.

Be well,
- Levi

On 1/9/26 10:03, Ross Burton wrote:
> On 31 Dec 2025, at 22:52, Levi Shafter via lists.openembedded.org 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> The fsck in oe_mkext234fs() was added to prevent an extra reboot on the
>> target:
>>
>> https://git.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/commit/?id=a93d0059341
>>
>> This has the side effect of increasing delta between images which
>> prevents reproducibility. In many cases, the added security provided by
>> image reproducibility is worth the extra reboot upon first booting the
>> target. The use of fsck should be included by default, but left
>> configurable.
>>
>> [YOCTO #16110]
> 
> There’s slightly more information in the bug report than here, which links to 
> a video from YPS 2024.12 talking about how fsck will modify timestamps in 
> file systems, so whilst the initial ext4 from mkfs is reproducible, we do a 
> fsck to clear flags and they’re no longer bit-identical.  Is this the only 
> source of non-determinism that you’re observing?
> 
> I don’t think adding an option is the right thing here as you’re swapping one 
> problem (non-reproducible ext4) with another (filesystem dirty, needs a 
> reboot).  As the video shows, we should be passing timestamp information at 
> construction time to avoid this problem. Would you be able to work on a patch 
> to do that instead?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ross

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