Bug#940028: launching d-i on multiple consoles doesn't play well with preseeding
Package: rootskel
Version: 1.131
Severity: important
I like to create Xen domU virtual machines using debian-installer, with
preseeding for a no-questions-asked experience. This works well with stretch,
but when I try to use buster images (from debian/dists/buster/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/xen/ in the public repository) I find that I am
being asked some questions (by localechooser) despite the preseeding. Moreover,
the exact questions asked vary from run to run even if I make no changes to
my setup. Occasionally I even get netcfg failures.
>From the installer log I see that two instances of debian-installer are being
run in parallel, one for each of the consoles hvc0 and tty0:
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Looking at console hvc0 from /proc/consoles
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding hvc0 to consoles list
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: hvc0 is preferred
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Looking at console tty0 from /proc/consoles
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding tty0 to consoles list
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding inittab entry for hvc0
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding inittab entry for tty0
Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Restarting init to start d-i on the consoles we found
Sep 10 10:02:13 init: reloading /etc/inittab
Sep 10 10:02:13 init: starting pid 208, tty '/dev/tty4': '/usr/bin/tail -f /var/log/syslog'
Sep 10 10:02:13 init: starting pid 209, tty '/dev/hvc0': '/sbin/debian-installer'
Sep 10 10:02:13 init: starting pid 210, tty '/dev/tty0': '/sbin/debian-installer'
This seems to be new behaviour since stretch, introduced in version 1.128 of
package rootskel. I suspect that the two debian-installer instances are
racing each other. To confirm this, I unpacked initrd.gz, made a simple change
to sbin/reopen-console (adding inittab entries only for cons in $preferred
instead of for cons in $consoles), repacked, and run an installation again
with much better results (no more questions from localechooser).
I do appreciate that for interactive d-i use it's nice to have it show up on
all consoles; but not at the expense of breaking fully automated installation.
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