Package: initramfs-tools
Version: 0.97
Severity: normal
Hello, Dear Maks,
It's a long time since we last talked together.
I've sorted out the bug, thought I can't explain why my system was broken in
such a way to explose this bug.
Please, read on.
The only thing I did was to upgrade initramfs-tools from version 0.94.4 to
version 0.97 , as the following dpkg.log line shows:
2010-06-30 12:51:11 upgrade initramfs-tools 0.94.4 0.97
All went good, and triggers went right.
I made this update the usual way, through aptitude.
I've investigated and reached the following conclusion:
For some reason, there was no COMPRESS=... stanza in my
/etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf configuration file.
It is very strange, because I've never ever tried to modify this.
Creating an initrd with initramfs-tools 0.94.4 succeeded because this
version is resilient to the missing COMPRESS=... stanza.
In the contrary, creating an initrd with initramfs-tools 0.97 failed because
this version relies on the stanza COMPRESS=... which was missing on my
system.
That explains why the bug triggered on upgrade from version 0.94.4 to
version 0.97 of the initramfs-tools package.
Here folows my interpretation of why my system was missing the
COMPRESS=... stanza in the initramfs.conf configuration file:
Ages ago, I was in need of modifying this coniguration file, just the
MODULES=... stanza in fact.
I often swapped from MODULES=most to MODULES=dep, and vice versa,
because either I had trouble to make lilo boot with large initrds, or I
didn't get the good set of modules in to boot. (both happened alternatively)
I believe, thought, it is quite some time now, that my initramfs.conf
configuration file has returned to a sane state WRT this MODULES=...
stanza, because it was monthes ago that I last needed such trickery.
It appears very likely that some older version of initramfs-tools didn't
have a COMPRESS=... stanza in its configuration file. And for some reason,
APT/DPKG messed things up on successive upgrades of initramfs-tools, and did
not replace the initramfs.conf configuration file with its updated
version.
I believe that APT/DPKG didn't warn me that I had a modified local version
of the initramfs.conf configuration file.
I remember clearly, however, that APT/DPKG warned me that I had a modified
update-initramfs.conf configuration file, and I directed it to keep my
local version which only differed from the official version by the modified
update_initramfs=no stanza, instead of update_initramfs=yes.
So, I still can't explain why my initramfs.conf configuration file was
still missing the COMPRESS=... stanza.
Even more strange is that reportbug warned me that I had a modified
update-initramfs.conf file, but didn't talk about my then modified
initramfs.conf file either.
This missing stanza has survived at least two upgrades of initramfs-tools :
from pre- 0.94.4 to 0.94.4 , and from 0.94.4 to 0.97 ; without me being
warned, and the bug only triggered when using the 0.97 version because this
particular version depends on the COMPRESS variable to be set properly, as I
said above.
I can't figure out why APT/DPKG didn't warn me that I had a modified local
version of initramfs.conf .
All that I know is that NOW, APT/DPKG warns me if I modify
/etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf before upgrading initramfs-tools from
version 0.94.4 to version 0.97 .
Note that it is strange that initramfs-tools 0.97 depends on the COMPRESS
variable to be set properly in /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf, while
the 0.94.4 version does not, especially that both versions embed a
COMPRESS=gzip stanza.
That's all.
In hope my report will prove useful.
Sincerely,
Valentin QUEQUET
-- Package-specific info:
-- initramfs sizes
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 51 Feb 16 12:09
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.29.4-reiser4-um-custom-0001 -
/usr/bin/initrd.img-2.6.29.4-reiser4-um-custom-0001
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 79 Feb 16 12:09
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.29.4-reiser4-um-custom-0001.udev_and_cryptsetup_updated -
/usr/bin/initrd.img-2.6.29.4-reiser4-um-custom-0001.udev_and_cryptsetup_updated
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13M Jun 8 18:07 /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13M Jun 8 18:08 /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14M May 21 02:22 /boot/initrd.img-2.6.33-2-686
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14M May 21 02:23 /boot/initrd.img-2.6.33-2-686-bigmem
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14M May 6 01:43
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.33-3.dmz.2-liquorix-686
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14M Feb 19 16:10
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.33-rc8-git1-custom-0001
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Feb 16 12:04
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.33-rc8-um-custom-0001 -
/usr/bin/initrd.img-2.6.33-rc8-um-custom-0001
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15M May 30 10:36
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.34-0.dmz.5-liquorix-686
-rw--- 1 root root 14M Jul 2 10:17 /boot/initrd.img-2.6.34-1-686
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 46K Jun 30 14:01
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.34-1-686-bigmem.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14M Jun 8 17:46
