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Bug#853918: marked as done (syslinux-utils: Unable to build writable installation thumb drive)

Your message dated Thu, 2 Feb 2017 15:48:40 +0100
with message-id <20170202144840.GA15488@mraw.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#853918: syslinux-utils: Unable to build writable installation thumb drive
has caused the Debian Bug report #853918,
regarding syslinux-utils: Unable to build writable installation thumb drive
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
853918: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=853918
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: syslinux-utils
Version: 5.00+dfsg-1
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable

Dear Maintainer,

I've followed the instructions at 
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch04s03.html.en section 
4.3.3 (essentially 
http://hyper.to/blog/link/debian-installer-on-a-usb-key/) for several 
years to make Debian installer thumb drives that are writable.  I 
discovered that the ones I made on a Jessie machine will not boot into 
the installer whereas ones made on a Wheezy machine will.

I traced the break to when syslinux was upgraded from 4.06 to 5.00.  If 
I boot a thumb drive created using 4.06 in QEMU
(sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -hdb /dev/sdb), it begins like this:

  Booting from Hard Disk...
  MBR 
  Loading vmlinuz.....
  Loading initrd.gz............ready.
  Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)...ok

After a few seconds, the Debian installer appears.  Good.  If I use 
5.00, this is how the boot begins:

  Booting from Hard Disk...
  MBR
  Loading vmlinuz... ok
  Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)...ok

Note how initrd.gz is not mentioned.  Eventually the boot process will 
end with a kernel panic that looks like one of these two snippets:

example 1
[    0.832110] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 0000000000000000 DR7: 0000000000000000
[    0.832110] Stack:
[    0.832110]  ffff880000000010 ffff8800070b7eb0 ffff8800070b7e50 ffff8800070b7ea0
[    0.832110]  ffff8800070b7eb8 0000000000000012 0000000000000001 000000000000000a
[    0.832110]  000000000000fffe ffff880000088000 0000000000008001 ffffffff81704fb5
[    0.832110] Call Trace:
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff819035a7>] ? mount_block_root+0x2a9/0x2b8
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff811bae95>] ? SyS_mknod+0x185/0x210
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff81903739>] ? prepare_namespace+0x133/0x169
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff81903258>] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x1d7/0x1e1
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff8190295e>] ? initcall_blacklist+0xb2/0xb2
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff81507da0>] ? rest_init+0x80/0x80
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff81507daa>] ? kernel_init+0xa/0xf0
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff8151ad18>] ? ret_from_fork+0x58/0x90
[    0.832110]  [<ffffffff81507da0>] ? rest_init+0x80/0x80
[    0.832110] Code: c3 64 eb b1 83 3d 48 4d 55 00 00 74 05 e8 81 d0 b7 ff 48 c7 c6 c0 67 a6 81 48 c7 c7 f8 68 71 81 31 c0 e8 66 06 00 00 fb 66 66 90 <66> 66 90 45 31 e4 e8 9d ce be ff 4d 39 ec 7c 18 41 83 f6 01 44
[    0.832110] RIP  [<ffffffff81511a58>] panic+0x1c2/0x206
[    0.832110]  RSP <ffff8800070b7e38>
[    0.832110] ---[ end trace c6e5ec37ea66b262 ]---

example 2
[    0.801766] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS1.7.5-20140531_083030-gandalf 04/01/2014
[    0.801930]  0000000000000000 ffffffff81514c11 ffffffff817054c8 ffff8800070b7ea0
[    0.802072]  ffffffff8151195e ffff880000000010 ffff8800070b7eb0 ffff8800070b7e50
[    0.802166]  ffff8800070b7ea0 ffff8800070b7eb8 0000000000000012 0000000000000001
[    0.802282] Call Trace:
[    0.802572]  [<ffffffff81514c11>] ? dump_stack+0x5d/0x78
[    0.802654]  [<ffffffff8151195e>] ? panic+0xc8/0x206
[    0.802734]  [<ffffffff819035a7>] ? mount_block_root+0x2a9/0x2b8
[    0.802788]  [<ffffffff811bae95>] ? SyS_mknod+0x185/0x210
[    0.802841]  [<ffffffff81903739>] ? prepare_namespace+0x133/0x169
[    0.802893]  [<ffffffff81903258>] ? kernel_init_freeable+0x1d7/0x1e1
[    0.802945]  [<ffffffff8190295e>] ? initcall_blacklist+0xb2/0xb2
[    0.802996]  [<ffffffff81507da0>] ? rest_init+0x80/0x80
[    0.803046]  [<ffffffff81507daa>] ? kernel_init+0xa/0xf0
[    0.803096]  [<ffffffff8151ad18>] ? ret_from_fork+0x58/0x90
[    0.803146]  [<ffffffff81507da0>] ? rest_init+0x80/0x80
[    0.803506] Kernel Offset: 0x0 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range:0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffff9fffffff)
[    0.803738] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mountroot fs on unknown-block(0,0)

The final line from the second panic spew dovetails with fact that the 
beginning of the bad boot is missing a reference to initrd.gz.  I'm now 
going through the syslinux git repo to see exactly what caused this 
change or if the problem is due to something bad in the debianification 
process.

I feel strongly that this needs to be fixed before Stretch is finalized 
and hopefully backported to Jessie.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Hi,

David Griffith <dave@661.org> (2017-02-02):
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> I've followed the instructions at 
> https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch04s03.html.en section 
> 4.3.3 (essentially 
> http://hyper.to/blog/link/debian-installer-on-a-usb-key/) for several 
> years to make Debian installer thumb drives that are writable.  I 
> discovered that the ones I made on a Jessie machine will not boot into 
> the installer whereas ones made on a Wheezy machine will.

The debian installer team committed a patch during the stretch release
cycle to update the installation guide for the new syslinux behaviour:
  https://bugs.debian.org/803267

Unfortunately this wasn't propagated to jessie, which explains why the
instructions you quoted above aren't sufficient to get a functional
installer.

I've just opened a bug report so that the release team gives me a green
light to update the installation-guide package in jessie:
  https://bugs.debian.org/853965

Once that has happened, we'll be able to get an updated website and
proper instructions for jessie as well. In the meanwhile, look at the
stretch instructions:
  https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/amd64/ch04s03.html.en

> I feel strongly that this needs to be fixed before Stretch is
> finalized and hopefully backported to Jessie.

The fix is in stretch, soon in jessie… but is more a documentation issue
than a syslinux one; that's why I'm closing this bug report. ;)


KiBi.

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