[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Bug#848181: initramfs-tools-core: support mounting of more complex setups



Hi Ben,

Am 14.12.2016 um 23:51 schrieb Ben Hutchings:
> Control: tag -1 wontfix
> 
> This code is broken in several ways,

For me it would be interesting to know about them. So I could improve my
skills.

> and I don't want to add this sort
> of complexity anyway.  Sorry.

This complexity comes from the fact that initramfs ignores the mount
order in /etc/fstab and that it does not support the bind option of
mount (wich is supported by busybox, btw.).

Following this concept, you can only have either a good usability as
unix systems used to have for decades until the recent changes in
initramfs, or you can have a complicated system.

I see the following alternatives:
a) Check at configure time which filesystems are needed for mounting
/usr. This can lead into problems when administrators have to move the
contents of one directory to another partition (as it was in my case).

b) Provide an easily to modify configuration variable that can be used
to specify the filesystems that must be early mounted and their mount order.

Otherwise I expect that there will be many more bug reports and
complaints about initramfs in particular, Debian at medium level and the
unpredictability of Linux configuration in the future.

I think the 2nd approach will be the easiest to implement: replace
“mountfs /usr“ by “for fs in $EARLYMOUNTFS ; do mountfs "$fs"; done“ but
it may still lead to confusion while upgrading Debian. I'm using Debian
for more than 15 years, now, and, until recently, I had never a major
Debian release that rendered my system unbootable. People don't expect that.

Regards,

Tobias

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature


Reply to: