[Vmdebootstrap-devel] Bug#800910: Bug#800910: vmdebootstrap: creates /etc/inittab even if sysvinit is not installed

[Neil Williams]

On Mon, 05 Oct 2015 13:11:01 +0200
Christian Seiler <christian at iwakd.de> wrote:

> > The way you are describing this, you are not actually
> > testing against sysvinit, you are testing against a system which has
> > been converted from systemd to sysvinit. The primary issue a lot of
> > people want tested is to run on a system which was sysvinit, stayed
> > as sysvinit and never had systemd installed as init.
> 
> Well no, not necessarily. Some people do upgrade their systems, but
> others want a fresh installation with sysvinit. For example, let's say
> somebody who really doesn't like systemd wants to install a new
> computer they bought - in addition to their old one that was upgraded.
> As I said above, the Debian project currently recommends the same
> command I am using to switch to sysvinit after installation
> (preseeding the installer does the same thing). Note that the images
> autopkgtest uses are not images where lots of stuff was configured.
> It's basically vmdebootstrap + a little bit of customization, so that
> tests can be automated. Notthing else. It's basically a fresh install
> before the tests are run (which in turn install all the packages that
> are required for runnnig those tests - in an overlay that is thrown
> away after the test ends).
> 
> To repeat myself: if we say for normal users that after a _fresh_
> installation it's fine to just purge systemd-sysv and install
> sysvinit-core, then that should be fine for test cases too - and if
> there happen to be some problems, I would consider those to be bugs.

Then why was there a need for a hardcoded replacement file in your
original patch?
 
> > It's outside the scope of vmdebootstrap -
> > unless the presence of absence of the file has any implication for 
> > how
> > the image itself is first built or first booted. If that is not a
> > problem, then this bug report can be closed.
> 
> On the other hand, I _would_ like to see vmdebootstrap not create
> /etc/inittab if it doesn't exist, because that behavior is definitely
> broken.

I don't see the breakage at this stage. It doesn't break systemd
support and any change has to retain compatibility with wheezy.
Switching init system is a customisation step and not a direct
operation for vmdebootstrap itself.
 
> Currently, /etc/inittab consists of _just_ the serial console after
> installing sysvinit-core. That means that the VM will not boot at all
> after installing sysvinit-core on a freshly vmdebootstrap'd system.

? It does boot - this is expressly how vmdebootstrap tests with Wheezy.
Maybe you are using the qemu -nographic option?

> If
> you don't append the serial console line to /etc/inittab unless it
> exists, this will at least make the system bootable (albeit without
> serial console), which is a much better outcome IMHO.

Disabling the serial console like that makes this patch pointless. The
change for this issue can't simply disable existing support like that.

The refactoring of vmdebootstrap (in experimental but needs some extra
fixups) is looking to avoid assumptions within the codebase, so I will
look into /etc/inittab being related to sysvinit but that change must
preserve Wheezy support, serial console support and not rely on extra
hardcoded files.

I don't see any need to change this in the master branch at this stage,
any fix for the assumed relationship between !systemd and /etc/inittab
and Wheezy (retaining all existing support) needs to go into the
refactored branch which will likely form the basis of the next unstable
upload:
http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/commit/?h=codehelp/modules

(This is one change on top of current experimental.)

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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