11:50 p.m.
Hi all,
Alyx and I have been talking and we think GRUB should automatically
update its configuration when a new kernel is installed. Something like
triggers="grub.trigger=/usr/share/kernel"
Then grub.trigger can contain (pseudocode):
[ -f /boot/grub/grub.cfg ] || die "/boot is not mounted or GRUB is not
installed. Update the configuration manually."
[ -f /boot/grub/.manual_config ]] && die "Not overwriting your
configuration. Please update it manually before rebooting."
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Thoughts?
Best,
--arw
--
A. Wilcox (awilfox)
Open-source programmer (C, C++, Python)
https://code.foxkit.us/u/awilfox/
--
A. Wilcox (awilfox)
Project Lead, Adélie Linux
https://www.adelielinux.org
2:33 a.m.
On Jul 09 10:50 PM, A. Wilcox wrote:
Hi all,
Alyx and I have been talking and we think GRUB should automatically
update its configuration when a new kernel is installed. Something like
triggers="grub.trigger=/usr/share/kernel"
Then grub.trigger can contain (pseudocode):
[ -f /boot/grub/grub.cfg ] || die "/boot is not mounted or GRUB is not
installed. Update the configuration manually."
[ -f /boot/grub/.manual_config ]] && die "Not overwriting your
configuration. Please update it manually before rebooting."
The trigger should not die here, otherwise apk will mark it as broken
and try to re-run it on the next `apk fix` invocation, when it will be
still broken since .manual_config will still exist, and so on. This
behavior is desirable for the missing mount case, but not here. Here, it
should print a warning message and exit with status zero.
Since the message for the second case will not be fatal, care should be
taken that it is made highly visible in the apk output.
Additionally, some mechanism must be employed so that users who:
1. Currently have a manual grub config
2. Do not have a .manual_config file
do not have their configuration file overwritten when this change is
made. By what mechanism this is made (public announcement, some sort of
technical measure) I'm not sure.
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Besides the three concerns discussed above (die, visibility,
transition), this seems like a good idea.
Max
3:19 a.m.
On 2019-07-10 04:50, A. Wilcox wrote:
Hi all,
Alyx and I have been talking and we think GRUB should automatically
update its configuration when a new kernel is installed. Something
like
triggers="grub.trigger=/usr/share/kernel"
Then grub.trigger can contain (pseudocode):
[ -f /boot/grub/grub.cfg ] || die "/boot is not mounted or GRUB is not
installed. Update the configuration manually."
[ -f /boot/grub/.manual_config ]] && die "Not overwriting your
configuration. Please update it manually before rebooting."
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Thoughts?
+1, this would very much remove some footguns. Alternatively, we could
ship a symlink in /boot pointing to the installed kernel and initramfs
image (if present), so that the Grub config doesn't need to change if
the kernel is upgraded -- this is what Arch Linux does, for example.
Obviously this doesn't really handle the case of having multiple kernels
installed very well, but that then depends on how many kernels we're
planning to ship. (As far as I know, the only place we have multiple
available kernel images is the POWER8-optimised kernel for ppc64
alongside the regular ppc64 kernel.)
A similar case could be made for regenerating the initramfs upon kernel
upgrades, if present, which is another footgun that needs to be watched
out for.
Cheers,
--mm.
11:25 a.m.
On Wed, Jul 10, 2019 at 08:19:28AM +0100, Molly Miller wrote:
On 2019-07-10 04:50, A. Wilcox wrote:
> Alyx and I have been talking and we think GRUB should automatically
> update its configuration when a new kernel is installed. Something like
I like the suggestion a lot! We should also look into doing sth similar
for dracut.
+1, this would very much remove some footguns. Alternatively, we
could ship
a symlink in /boot pointing to the installed kernel and initramfs image (if
present), so that the Grub config doesn't need to change if the kernel is
upgraded -- this is what Arch Linux does, for example.
As you've pointed out yourself, a single symlink isn't particularily
flexible. Furthermore, symlinks aren't supported by all filesystems, and
IIRC some of us use their ESPs (which are vfat filesystems) as /boot
partitions.
Cheers,
Luis
11:35 p.m.
On 10/07/2019 10:25, Luis Ressel wrote:
> +1, this would very much remove some footguns. Alternatively, we
could ship
> a symlink in /boot pointing to the installed kernel and initramfs image (if
> present), so that the Grub config doesn't need to change if the kernel is
> upgraded -- this is what Arch Linux does, for example.
+1 for a
statically-named symlink to the most recent kernel and
initramfs images.
This was one of the things I got annoyed by when I switched from Arch to
Gentoo.
I'm also strongly in favor of anything that would prevent users from
having to
reconfigure things after regular updates, and with the current state of
kernel
and hardware security, we're probably going to have a few more kernel
updates
in 1.0's support period.
As you've pointed out yourself, a single symlink isn't
particularily
flexible. Furthermore, symlinks aren't supported by all filesystems, and
IIRC some of us use their ESPs (which are vfat filesystems) as /boot
partitions.
In cases where /boot can't handle symlinks, the hook could attempt to
make a
copy if there's enough space on the filesystem.
On that note, I think Adélie's documentation should standardize where we
recommend
mounting the ESP. I know from lurking in Arch's channels that new users
often
get confused by the Arch wiki having conflicting recommendations.
-Lee
3:39 a.m.
On Jul 10 02:33 AM, Max Rees wrote:
Additionally, some mechanism must be employed so that users who:
1. Currently have a manual grub config
2. Do not have a .manual_config file
do not have their configuration file overwritten when this change is
made. By what mechanism this is made (public announcement, some sort of
technical measure) I'm not sure.
mcrees on leliel ~ % head -n6 /boot/grub/grub.cfg
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#
This presents two options:
1. Determine that the user has a manual grub.cfg solely by grepping for
(part of) this header. No separate .manual_config flag file is
needed.
2. Same as #1, but instead perform the grep at .post-upgrade time and
make the .manual_config file in that case.
It's late so I can't think very clearly about the pros/cons of these two
options, so I'll post it here and hopefully someone else can figure it
out later.
Max
659
days inactive
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days old
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5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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A. Wilcox -
Lee Starnes -
Luis Ressel -
Max Rees -
Molly Miller