I marked this as affecting kmod in bionic, but I don't think a manpage
correction is worth an SRU for kmod. Possibly we could queue up this to
ship with some other actual bugfix, or we could upload it with block-
proposed-bionic to hold it in proposed until some other bugfix comes
along.
** Description changed:
+ [impact]
+
+ 'man modules' claims that modules options can be provided in the
+ /etc/modules file, but doing so causes systemd-modules-load.service to
+ fail
+
+ [test case]
+
+ add a module with at least one option to the /etc/modules file and
+ restart systemd-modules-load
+
+ see original description for more detail and example of service failure
+
+ [regression potential]
+
+ as this only changes a manpage, any regression would likely be in
+ incorrect information provided to users, or some regression occurring
+ due to replacement of the man file or upgrading of the package
+
+ [scope]
+
+ This was fixed in Debian by
+
https://salsa.debian.org/md/kmod/-/commit/676cb532b51be28cc19be6dd7fd8593ea5958e24
+
+ This is fixed already in Ubuntu focal and later.
+
+ [other info]
+
+ as this is a manpage-only correction, if this is sru'ed it should use
+ block-proposed-bionic, or just be bundled with a real bugfix.
+
+ [original description]
+
My systemd-modules-load.service fails to start like this:
● systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules
-Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static;
vendor preset: enabled)
-Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2020-10-27 10:24:52 PDT; 4s
ago
- Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8)
-man:modules-load.d(5)
- Process: 23683 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited,
status=1/FAILURE)
- Main PID: 23683 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
+ Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static;
vendor preset: enabled)
+ Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2020-10-27 10:24:52 PDT; 4s
ago
+ Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8)
+ man:modules-load.d(5)
+ Process: 23683 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited,
status=1/FAILURE)
+ Main PID: 23683 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Oct 27 10:24:52 octagon systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Oct 27 10:24:52 octagon systemd-modules-load[23683]: Failed to find module
'vfio vfio_iommu_type1 vfio_pci vfio_virqfd'
Oct 27 10:24:52 octagon systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main
process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 27 10:24:52 octagon systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with
result 'exit-code'.
Oct 27 10:24:52 octagon systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
It looks like it's trying to interpret a whole module-and-arguments
string as just a module name, and failing to load this.
By recursive grep of /etc, the only place it can be getting that string
is /etc/modules:
$ sudo ag vfio_iommu_type1
- [sudo] password for anovak:
+ [sudo] password for anovak:
modules
5:vfio vfio_iommu_type1 vfio_pci vfio_virqfd
The manpage for /etc/modules clearly says that the file may contain
module names *and* arguments:
[anovak@octagon ~]$ man modules | grep Arguments
-The /etc/modules file contains the names of kernel modules that are to
be loaded at boot time, one per line. Arguments can be given in the same line
as the module name. Lines beginning with a
+ The /etc/modules file contains the names of kernel modules that are to
be loaded at boot time, one per line. Arguments can be given in the same line
as the module name. Lines beginning with a
The manpage for systemd-modules-load.service doesn't mention
/etc/modules, and says to see the manpage for modules-load.d(5). That
manpage says that it only reads files from specific directories:
SYNOPSIS
-/etc/modules-load.d/*.conf
+ /etc/modules-load.d/*.conf
-/run/modules-load.d/*.conf
+ /run/modules-load.d/*.conf
-/usr/lib/modules-load.d/*.conf
+ /usr/lib/modules-load.d/*.conf
The manpage is clearly lying, and systemd-modules-load.service is
clearly also reading /etc/modules. Moreover, it's misreading it, and not
interpreting it according to the documented semantics of /etc/modules.
I was induced to create an /etc/modules like this by
https://mathiashueber.com/windows-virtual-machine-gpu-passthrough-
ubuntu/ but I'm not sure that it's actually getting used by anything,
because lsmod shows some but not all of the options I specified.
[anovak@octagon etc]$ lsmod | grep "^vfio "
vfio 28672 2 vfio_iommu_type1,vfio_pci
Can systemd be made to stop reading /etc/modules so that it doesn't
report failure when it doesn't understand lines with options? And is
that file being read by something else in the system, or should I just
remove it as a workaround to stop upsetting systemd?
