Debian bug report logs - #918 , boring messages ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell), debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell) Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 15:18:04 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Fri, 26 May 1995 15:18:04 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052615095216159; Fri, 26 May 1995 15:09:53 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sF0zJ-0008BqC; Fri, 26 May 95 08:07 PDT Received: from motgate.mot.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA26043 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Fri, 26 May 1995 08:06:19 -0700 Received: from pobox.mot.com (pobox.mot.com [129.188.137.100]) by motgate.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with ESMTP id KAA12701 for ; Fri, 26 May 1995 10:07:42 -0500 Received: from mdd.comm.mot.com (mdisea.mdd.comm.mot.com [138.242.64.201]) by pobox.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with SMTP id KAA18182 for ; Fri, 26 May 1995 10:07:41 -0500 Received: from bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com by mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10489; Fri, 26 May 95 08:07:39 PDT Received: by bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04635; Fri, 26 May 95 08:07:37 PDT Date: Fri, 26 May 95 08:07:37 PDT From: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell) Message-Id: <9505261507.AA04635@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com> To: debian-bugs@pixar.com PACKAGE: miscutils VERSION: 1.2 PACKAGE_REVISION: 1 This package installs a shell script named /usr/sbin/mkboot. There's no mkboot(1) or mkboot(8) man page. The /usr/sbin/mkboot script starts out as follows: #! /bin/sh # # Make the system bootable. echo "In order to use the new kernel image you have just installed, you" echo "will need to reboot the machine. First, however, you will need to" echo "either make a bootable floppy diskette or re-run LILO. Do you want" echo -n "to do that now (y/n)? " This script is run from the image.deb postinst, and this prompting is appropriate in that situation. However, the script is also available to be run by the user, and this prompting is not necessarily appropriate in that situation. This prompting belongs in the image.deb postinst script, IMHO, not in the /usr/sbin/mkboot script. Also, the prompting should be quite a bit more insistent about tne need to either install a LILO boot sector LILO or make a boot floppy after installing the image package, since he consequeence of not doing this is an unbootable system. The user should be allowed to opt out of this, but we should try to prevent his doing this by mistake. IMHO, the /usr/sbin/mkboot script should not even offer to install a LILO boot sector, but should just try to do a very reliable and robust job of making a usable boot floppy. It might be appropriate to offer to run LILO from the image.deb package postinst, but I'd be leery about doing this -- There's just too much chance that /etc/lilo.conf might not be right. Better for the user to run LILO manually, IMHO. Also, later on in the mkboot script: if [ -f /etc/lilo.conf -a -x /sbin/lilo ] then echo until [ "$input" = "y" -o "$input" = "n" ] do echo -n "LILO appears to be installed. Should I run /sbin/lilo (y/n)? " If the script continues to offer to run LILO, I'd suggest rewording this. When I first saw it, I took it to mean that a LILO boot sector seems to be installed (which it may be, but that's not what has been determined). Telling someone who has not installed a LILO boot sector on his system that "LILO appears to be installed" can be confusing. How about just asking "Should I run /sbin/lilo (y/n)? " if lilo is found to be available?. Finally, I'm unable to boot my system from a boot floppy created by this script (which would leave me with an unbootable system if the script was run from the image.deb postinst script) (which, in fact, has happened to me). I get the message: Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 83:03. This appears to be because the image pointed to by /boot/zimage is rdev'd to /dev/hda3, and I have my linux root on /dev/hda2. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell) Subject: Bug#918: Acknowledgement (was: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: <9505261507.AA04635@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com> References: <9505261507.AA04635@bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com> Thank you for the problem report you have sent regarding Debian GNU/Linux. This is an automatically generated reply, to let you know your message has been received. It is being forwarded to the developers' mailing list for their attention; they will reply in due course. If you wish to submit further information on your problem, please send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, but please ensure that the Subject line of your message starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson), debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 18:03:02 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Sat, 27 May 1995 18:03:02 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052717560313525; Sat, 27 May 1995 17:56:03 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFQ48-00064uC; Sat, 27 May 95 10:54 PDT Received: from bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk by pixar.com with SMTP id AA06167 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sat, 27 May 1995 10:52:56 -0700 Received: by bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk (Smail-3.1.29.0 #36) id m0sFQ41-000BzrC; Sat, 27 May 95 18:54 BST Received: by chiark id (Debian /\oo/\ Smail3.1.29.1 #29.31); Fri, 26 May 95 23:13 BST Message-Id: Date: Fri, 26 May 95 23:13 BST From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: debian-bugs@pixar.com Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#918: mkboot and image packages"): > [...] > IMHO, the /usr/sbin/mkboot script should not even offer to install a LILO > boot sector, but should just try to do a very reliable and robust job of > making a usable boot floppy. It might be appropriate to offer to run LILO > from the image.deb package postinst, but I'd be leery about doing this -- > There's just too much chance that /etc/lilo.conf might not be right. > Better for the user to run LILO manually, IMHO. No, I disagree. A common situation will be that the user upgrades their `image' package. If you don't run LILO their system will become unbootable. We need some way to distinguish those systems where `making the new kernel bootable' means running LILO and those where it means running mkboot. Ian. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: Bill Mitchell , debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: Bill Mitchell Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 19:18:03 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Sat, 27 May 1995 19:18:03 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052719103615725; Sat, 27 May 1995 19:10:36 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFREk-0005NoC; Sat, 27 May 95 12:09 PDT Received: from motgate.mot.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA07742 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sat, 27 May 1995 12:08:01 -0700 Received: from pobox.mot.com (pobox.mot.com [129.188.137.100]) by motgate.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with ESMTP id OAA11621; Sat, 27 May 1995 14:08:19 -0500 Received: from mdd.comm.mot.com (mdisea.mdd.comm.mot.com [138.242.64.201]) by pobox.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with SMTP id OAA00714; Sat, 27 May 1995 14:08:18 -0500 Received: from bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com by mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02378; Sat, 27 May 95 12:08:17 PDT Received: by bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06000; Sat, 27 May 95 12:08:15 PDT Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 12:08:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Bill Mitchell X-Sender: mitchell@bb29c To: Ian Jackson , debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 26 May 1995, Ian Jackson wrote: >[...] > A common situation will be that the user upgrades their `image' > package. If you don't run LILO their system will become unbootable. > > We need some way to distinguish those systems where `making the new > kernel bootable' means running LILO and those where it means running > mkboot. "dd if=/dev/hda count=512 | od -cx" shows the following: 0000000 353 ] L I L O 001 \0 017 \0 377 377 $ \0 \0 \0 5deb 494c 4f4c 0001 000f ffff 0024 0000 Can we rely on this signature to indicate that a lilo boot is present, and offer to run lilo only if it is? Actually, though, if a MSDOS boot is present in the MBR, we should check the boot sector of the first "active" partition for a LILO boot sector as well. How to recognize what sort of non-LILO boot is present (MSDOS? OS-2? Win-whatever?, Something_else?), and what to do about it even if we can recognize it (or, for that matter, if we can't), isn't clear to me. IMHO, we shouldn't go installing LILO unless we're sure that we know what we're doing, or if the user tells us to -- and if we rely on the user, we should do our best not to lead non-expert users into making a bad mistake which will eleave them with an unbootable system. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: Bill Mitchell Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson), debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 21:33:12 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Sat, 27 May 1995 21:33:12 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052721294619358; Sat, 27 May 1995 21:29:46 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFTOW-0007ijC; Sat, 27 May 95 14:27 PDT Received: from bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk by pixar.com with SMTP id AA10678 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sat, 27 May 1995 14:26:13 -0700 Received: by bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk (Smail-3.1.29.0 #36) id m0sFTOB-000BzjC; Sat, 27 May 95 22:27 BST Received: by chiark id (Debian /\oo/\ Smail3.1.29.1 #29.31); Sat, 27 May 95 22:06 BST Message-Id: Date: Sat, 27 May 95 22:06 BST From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: References: Bill Mitchell writes ("Re: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages"): > On Fri, 26 May 1995, Ian Jackson wrote: > >[...] > > A common situation will be that the user upgrades their `image' > > package. If you don't run LILO their system will become unbootable. > > > > We need some way to distinguish those systems where `making the new > > kernel bootable' means running LILO and those where it means running > > mkboot. > > "dd if=/dev/hda count=512 | od -cx" shows the following: > > 0000000 353 ] L I L O 001 \0 017 \0 377 377 $ \0 \0 \0 > 5deb 494c 4f4c 0001 000f ffff 0024 0000 Ah, that's very useful. In that case, we can run LILO if LILO was most recently run on the partition specified in /etc/lilo.conf. > Can we rely on this signature to indicate that a lilo boot is > present, and offer to run lilo only if it is? Yes, I think so. > Actually, though, if a MSDOS boot is present in the MBR, we should > check the boot sector of the first "active" partition for a LILO > boot sector as well. No, that's not the way to do it. We should check the `boot' line in /etc/lilo.conf. That will tell us where LILO will install itself if it is run now (and, by implication, where it would be if it were already installed). That is the correct thing to do, IMO, as well as being considerably simpler :-). > How to recognize what sort of non-LILO boot is present (MSDOS? > OS-2? Win-whatever?, Something_else?), and what to do about it > even if we can recognize it (or, for that matter, if we can't), > isn't clear to me. We don't need to. If the disk (MBR) or partition mentioned in the lilo.conf `boot' line doesn't already contain LILO we simply run mkboot. We don't even need to prompt the user. After all, if they install and configure the LILO package and it runs `lilo' then all will be well at the next `image' installation. We'll probably want to mention to the user what we did, and why we did it - eg, "I see that you do not yet have LILO installed. Would you like to make a bootable floppy now containing the new kernel image ? (You can always do this later using the `mkboot' command.) (y/n)" or "Running LILO to set up new kernel image for booting. (If you wish to make a bootable floppy, use the `mkboot' command.)" If we do this we should probably put the kernel images that come with Debian in /vmlinux.distrib or some such, so that if the user adds and LILO's their own kernel they will be less likely to overwrite it later if they install an image.deb. Note that even if we overwrite /vmlinux then there's no point not rerunning LILO if it was already installed - if /vmlinux was the only bootable kernel then it's gone now anyway and we can't lose anything by trying to make the new kernel bootable. The only exception I can think of would be a dual-installation machine, but such systems will probably have LILO configured correctly in each installation on which it is installed - and if not, the sysadmin will probably be clueful enough to dig hirself out of the hole. Ian. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: Bill Mitchell , debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: Bill Mitchell Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 22:18:03 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Sat, 27 May 1995 22:18:03 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052722151220570; Sat, 27 May 1995 22:15:12 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFU7T-0005kIC; Sat, 27 May 95 15:14 PDT Received: from motgate.mot.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA11720 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sat, 27 May 1995 15:12:42 -0700 Received: from pobox.mot.com (pobox.mot.com [129.188.137.100]) by motgate.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with ESMTP id RAA20723; Sat, 27 May 1995 17:13:01 -0500 Received: from mdd.comm.mot.com (mdisea.mdd.comm.mot.com [138.242.64.201]) by pobox.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with SMTP id RAA13056; Sat, 27 May 1995 17:13:00 -0500 Received: from bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com by mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07320; Sat, 27 May 95 15:12:59 PDT Received: by bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06182; Sat, 27 May 95 15:12:56 PDT Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 15:12:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Bill Mitchell X-Sender: mitchell@bb29c To: Ian Jackson , debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 27 May 1995, Ian Jackson wrote: > > Actually, though, if a MSDOS boot is present in the MBR, we should > > check the boot sector of the first "active" partition for a LILO > > boot sector as well. > > No, that's not the way to do it. We should check the `boot' line in > /etc/lilo.conf. That will tell us where LILO will install itself if > it is run now (and, by implication, where it would be if it were > already installed). > > That is the correct thing to do, IMO, as well as being considerably > simpler :-). > > > How to recognize what sort of non-LILO boot is present (MSDOS? > > OS-2? Win-whatever?, Something_else?), and what to do about it > > even if we can recognize it (or, for that matter, if we can't), > > isn't clear to me. > > We don't need to. If the disk (MBR) or partition mentioned in the > lilo.conf `boot' line doesn't already contain LILO we simply run > mkboot. If, of course, the disk was lilo'd using the file which is in /etc/lilo.conf and not with "lilo -C ...", or "lilo -b ..."; and we can't know that. (Exception cases are always so messy. It's a real temptation to ignore exception cases because of their messiness. Should we do so in this case?) > [...] > The only exception I can think of would be a dual-installation > machine, but such systems will probably have LILO configured correctly > in each installation on which it is installed - and if not, the > sysadmin will probably be clueful enough to dig hirself out of the > hole. I wonder how common it'll be for Joe Clueful to help Sam Clueless (or perhaps Sam Client) out setting up his system, and perhaps leave a mismatched lilo.conf behind by using "lilo -b" or whatever; and then for Sam to later upgrade the image package (which looks simple to do -- just dselect it) on his own. When that happens, whose fault is it for making the system unbootable? Joe, who's long gone by now, or the people who provided the image package which Sam installed to get an unbootable system? Probably both, I'd say. Joe's long gone, though. The people who provided the image package are (hopefully) still around. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: Bill Mitchell Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson), debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 17:18:02 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Sun, 28 May 1995 17:18:02 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052817163614863; Sun, 28 May 1995 17:16:36 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFlvy-0005kIC; Sun, 28 May 95 10:15 PDT Received: from bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk by pixar.com with SMTP id AA01926 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sun, 28 May 1995 10:13:59 -0700 Received: by bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk (Smail-3.1.29.0 #36) id m0sFlvt-000BzVC; Sun, 28 May 95 18:15 BST Received: by chiark id (Debian /\oo/\ Smail3.1.29.1 #29.31); Sun, 28 May 95 01:25 BST Message-Id: Date: Sun, 28 May 95 01:25 BST From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: References: Bill Mitchell writes ("Re: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages"): > [...] > I wonder how common it'll be for Joe Clueful to help Sam Clueless > (or perhaps Sam Client) out setting up his system, and perhaps > leave a mismatched lilo.conf behind by using "lilo -b" or whatever; > and then for Sam to later upgrade the image package (which looks simple > to do -- just dselect it) on his own. > > When that happens, whose fault is it for making the system > unbootable? Joe. He should have known that Sam would have to install kernels himself later, and so he should have put the stuff in lilo.conf. BTW, it hadn't ever occurred to me to use the lilo `-b' switch (or whatever). Provided our script isn't doing anything that Sam would have known not to do we're definitely not making the situation any worse. Even if we don't have the script run lilo we have to encourage the user strongly to do so, as their system is much more likely to become unbootable by us running it. Also, (a) your scenario would make us fail to run lilo when we should have done - but of course there's no way we could successfully do so, because we don't have the information we need; (b) the LILO postinst should set up /etc/lilo.conf, not Joe Wannabe (or perhaps Joe Ripoff). (c) as I said before, given that we've destroyed the previous kernel image, it's unlikely that we'll do any more harm by running LILO. Ian. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: Bill Mitchell , debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: Bill Mitchell Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 20:03:03 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Sun, 28 May 1995 20:03:03 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 052820015419755; Sun, 28 May 1995 20:01:54 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFoW0-0005NoC; Sun, 28 May 95 13:00 PDT Received: from motgate.mot.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA05090 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sun, 28 May 1995 12:59:22 -0700 Received: from pobox.mot.com (pobox.mot.com [129.188.137.100]) by motgate.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with ESMTP id OAA13793; Sun, 28 May 1995 14:59:40 -0500 Received: from mdd.comm.mot.com (mdisea.mdd.comm.mot.com [138.242.64.201]) by pobox.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with SMTP id OAA00764; Sun, 28 May 1995 14:59:39 -0500 Received: from bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com by mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06101; Sun, 28 May 95 12:59:37 PDT Received: by bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06450; Sun, 28 May 95 12:59:29 PDT Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 12:59:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Bill Mitchell X-Sender: mitchell@bb29c To: Ian Jackson , debian-bugs@pixar.com Cc: debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I sense another disagreement brewing over this. To avoid that, I'll try to shut up after this on the subject of whether, when, and how to run LILO from image postinst and/or mkboot scripts. On Sun, 28 May 1995, Ian Jackson wrote: > Bill Mitchell writes ("Re: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages"): > > [...] > > I wonder how common it'll be for Joe Clueful to help Sam Clueless > > (or perhaps Sam Client) out setting up his system, and perhaps > > leave a mismatched lilo.conf behind by using "lilo -b" or whatever; > > and then for Sam to later upgrade the image package (which looks simple > > to do -- just dselect it) on his own. > > > > When that happens, whose fault is it for making the system > > unbootable? > > Joe. >From experience, I'd not be suprised to see the image package provider pointing the finger at Joe. If Joe were around, I'd not be suprised to see him pointing a finger in the other direction. Sam has probably had similar experiences with others in the past, and walks away muttering to himself and shaking his head -- looking for a way to get a bootable system which will stay bootable through upgrades. > [...] > (b) the LILO postinst should set up /etc/lilo.conf, not Joe Wannabe > (or perhaps Joe Ripoff). If we intend to make it a rule that /etc/lilo.conf _must_ be set up on Debian systems by system software and remain untouched by human hands, we'd better state it prominently to avoid suprising a lot of people. Ditto if we want to make it a requirement that /etc/lilo.conf always reflect the actual state of the last lilo boot sector install. > (c) as I said before, given that we've destroyed the previous kernel > image, it's unlikely that we'll do any more harm by running LILO. No, but the objective ought to be to make Sam's system a bootable system after an image package install -- not just not to make it any more unbootable than it already is. That's MHO, and I expect that Sam would agree. If Sam starts with a bootable suystem, installs the image package IAW instructions for doing that, and ends up with an unbootable system, the image package providor shouldn't be suprised to find Sam less than perfectly pleased. If we do continue to offer to run LILO during an image package postinst processing, I'd urge that we do it in a loop which offers the user a choice to shell out and check and/or modify /etc/lilo.conf, as well as choices to install or not install LILO. I'd also urge reminding him that if he chooses not to install LILO during postinst processing, he can do it manually at some later time. And, on the other side of the subject of this article, I still opine that the mkboot script (as opposed to the install package postinst) should simply do a very good job of making a boot floppy, and should not offer to run LILO on the hard drive (though it might be nice if it made a LILO'd boot floppy -- allowing boot-time specification of parameters). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: Bill Mitchell Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: "James A. Robinson" , debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: "James A. Robinson" Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 03:48:03 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Mon, 29 May 1995 03:48:03 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 05290342593317; Mon, 29 May 1995 03:42:59 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sFviG-00051eC; Sun, 28 May 95 20:41 PDT Received: from plato.simons-rock.edu by pixar.com with SMTP id AA14307 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Sun, 28 May 1995 20:40:29 -0700 Received: from simons-rock.edu by plato.simons-rock.edu with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0sFve3-00001FC; Sun, 28 May 95 23:37 EDT Message-Id: To: debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: Message from Bill Mitchell of "Sun, 28 May 1995 12:59:29 PDT." Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 23:37:35 -0400 From: "James A. Robinson" Ian wrote: > > > When that happens, whose fault is it for making the system > > > unbootable? > > > > Joe. Not really. Joe did what he was supposed to, make the system bootable with image X. If somebody (an image from a Debian person in this case) comes along and, in principle, says "I'll install image Y for you." Then Sam should very well expect to be able to boot afterwards. One could reasonably expect him to think "well, if it installs it, it shouldn't make my system unusable, right?" > MHO, and I expect that Sam would agree. If Sam starts with a > bootable suystem, installs the image package IAW instructions for > doing that, and ends up with an unbootable system, the image package > providor shouldn't be suprised to find Sam less than perfectly > pleased. If we do continue to offer to run LILO during an image [...] > package postinst processing, I'd urge that we do it in a loop which > offers the user a choice to shell out and check and/or modify > /etc/lilo.conf, as well as choices to install or not install LILO. [...] > still opine that the mkboot script (as opposed to the install > package postinst) should simply do a very good job of making a boot > floppy, and should not offer to run LILO on the hard drive (though > it might be nice if it made a LILO'd boot floppy -- allowing > boot-time specification of parameters). I agree with this. It is always safe to make a boot-floppy, and we can do the above plus add comments to the lilo.conf that explains what is going on. A story: when I recently upgraded my SparcStation from 2.3 to 2.4, I opted not to add a bunch of packages. Unfortunately I missed adding the linker. I put the CD back in, and told it "I want the linker installed." Well, The thing proceeded to pull off every other package on the system, and install the linker. So I then had a bare-bones SparcStation with happy little linker installed... The point from that story is that, while the first bit was entirely my mistake, the fool that made the installation procedure should NOT have made the program run around being overly "smart" without some sort of big old warning asking "I'm about to do X, is that OK?" I agree with Bill, I was less then pleased to have an unusable system after the CD exited it's program. Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: "James A. Robinson" Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent to debian-devel@pixar.com: Subject: Bug#918: mkboot and image packages Reply-To: Bill Mitchell , debian-bugs@pixar.com Resent-To: debian-devel@pixar.com Resent-From: Bill Mitchell Resent-Sender: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk Resent-Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 17:33:03 GMT Resent-Message-ID: X-Debian-PR-Package: miscutils X-Debian-PR-Keywords: Received: via spool for debian-bugs; Mon, 29 May 1995 17:33:03 GMT Received: with rfc822 via encapsulated-mail id 05291719067659; Mon, 29 May 1995 17:19:06 GMT Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0sG8Rv-0005kIC; Mon, 29 May 95 10:17 PDT Received: from motgate.mot.com by pixar.com with SMTP id AA27279 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Mon, 29 May 1995 10:16:29 -0700 Received: from pobox.mot.com (pobox.mot.com [129.188.137.100]) by motgate.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with ESMTP id MAA29361 for ; Mon, 29 May 1995 12:17:53 -0500 Received: from mdd.comm.mot.com (mdisea.mdd.comm.mot.com [138.242.64.201]) by pobox.mot.com (8.6.11/8.6.10/MOT-3.6) with SMTP id MAA14367 for ; Mon, 29 May 1995 12:17:52 -0500 Received: from bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com by mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03527; Mon, 29 May 95 10:17:51 PDT Received: by bb29c.mdd.comm.mot.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06710; Mon, 29 May 95 10:17:45 PDT Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 10:17:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Bill Mitchell X-Sender: mitchell@bb29c To: debian-bugs@pixar.com In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I know I said I'd try to shut up about this. Before I do, let me contribute a mkboot script which works for me. I'm sure it can be improved, once an agreement is reached about what the script should do. As written, it attempts to make LILO'd boot diskette, or to exit with an appropriate message if that fails. I wasn't sure about using the lilo "linear" parameter, but did specify it. As I understand it, "linear" allows the boot disk to work with some hard disk geometries and partition alignments which wouldn't work without this parameter; though I note the caveat in /usr/doc/lilo/README-FIRST.gz that it may make the boot floppy nonportable. #!/bin/sh # # attempt to make a boot diskette, using /dev/fd0 # exit with an appropriate error message if a problem is detected LEAF=/tmp/$$ ROOT_DEVICE=`mount | grep ' / ' | cut -d' ' -f1` ERROR=0 if [ $ERROR = 0 ] then if ! mkfs -t ext2 /dev/fd0 >/dev/null then echo ERROR: mkfs -t ext2 /dev/fd0 failed 1>2 ERROR=1 fi fi if [ $ERROR = 0 ] then if ! mkdir $LEAF then echo ERROR: mkdir $LEAF failed 1>2 ERROR=1 fi fi if [ $ERROR = 0 ] then if ! mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 $LEAF 1>2 then echo ERROR: mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 $LEAF failed 1>2 ERROR=1 fi fi if [ $ERROR = 0 ] then for i in /vmlinuz /boot/boot.b do if ! cp $i $LEAF then echo ERROR: cp $i $LEAF failed 1>2 ERROR=1 break fi done fi if [ $ERROR = 0 ] then if ! lilo -C - <&2 ERROR=1 fi fi umount /dev/fd0 2>/dev/null rmdir /tmp/$$ 2>/dev/null exit $ERROR mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message sent: From: iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson) To: Bill Mitchell Subject: Bug#918: Info received (was Bug#918: mkboot and image packages) In-Reply-To: References: Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding this problem report. It has been forwarded to the developers to accompany the original report. If you wish to continue to submit further information on your problem, please do the same thing again: send it to debian-bugs@pixar.com, ensuring that the Subject line starts with "Bug#918" or "Re: Bug#918" so that we can identify it as relating to the same problem. Please do not reply to the address at the top of this message, unless you wish to report a problem with the bug-tracking system. Ian Jackson (maintainer, debian-bugs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ian Jackson / iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk , with the debian-bugs tracking mechanism This page last modified 07:43:01 GMT Wed 01 Nov