Re: Automatic creation of last-known-good boot configuration

[songbird <songbird@anthive.com>]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> Jens Schmidt wrote: 
>> On Debian testing I've been bitten by the systemd upgrade and the
>> systemd package split recently, rendering my dracut-LUKS-based
>> system unbootable.  I know that my warranty is void since I'm on
>> testing, but both these issues would have been much easier to cope
>> with if there had been some good backup of my initramfs and kernel
>> below /boot.
>> 
>> So I thought that there might be some automatism like this:
>> 
>>   If the currently used kernel and initramfs have been in use
>>   already N times and if the boot time has been lower then M
>>   minutes each time (and if some other conditions are fulfilled),
>>   then consider that kernel and initramfs good and save them away
>>   where they will not be overwritten by regular kernel/initramfs
>>   maintenance.
>
> Are you using grub as your bootloader? Normally apt upgrade
> leaves the last N (N=5?) kernels and initramfs in /boot, and
> configures grub to make them available. apt dist-upgrade, on the
> other hand, tries to remove the oldest unused kernel and
> initramfs each time.

  i do tell apt specifically to not remove any kernel images
by using the option NeverAutoRemove in apt.conf 

=========
APT 
{

  NeverAutoRemove  { "linux-image.*";  };  // packages that should never
                                            // considered for autoRemove
};
=========

  usually after each kernel upgrade i'll remove the third oldest one
leaving me the most current one and the one that i used previously
if it seems to have been stable enough.  i like doing some things
manually and this is one of them.  the other one i prefer to do
myself is bring up the network connection.  sometimes i don't need
it so prefer to leave the connection off...

  also, just out of a good idea i usually keep a stable booting
partition.  this saves me at times.


  songbird