Bug#594189: initramfs-tools: environment variable to disable run_bootloader

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 05:44:32AM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-08-24 at 16:55 +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> > Actually, what I want is a consistent way to disable bootloader
> > invocation for all bootloaders, without necessarily requiring the
> > bootloader package not to be installed (since that's sometimes extremely
> > awkward to arrange).  Exactly where this goes I can't say I mind.  If
> > the result is an extension to the bootloader/kernel policy that needs to
> > be implemented in each bootloader package, that would be fine too.
> [...]
> 
> OK, so something like this:
> 
> "Boot loader packages must be installable on the filesystem in a
> disabled state where they will not write to the boot sector or other
> non-filesystem storage.  While a boot loader is disabled, any kernel and
> initramfs hooks it includes must do nothing except (optionally) printing
> a warning that the boot loader is disabled, and must exit successfully."

This is a good start, but it doesn't specify *how* boot loader packages
are to be disabled.  I think that this needs to be consistent across
boot loaders.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@debian.org]