[parted-devel] Issue with Linux kernel 5.8.8 and above

[Brian C. Lane]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2020 at 06:02:56PM +0200, Bureau wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Since kernel 5.8.8, parted gives the following error message each time 
> parted attempts to modify something on the disk.
> 
> libparted 3.3
> Partition(s) 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 
> 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 
> 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 
> 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 
> 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 
> 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 
> 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 
> 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128 on /dev/sda have been written, but we have 
> been unable to inform the kernel of the change, probably because it/they 
> are in use.  As a result, the old partition(s) will remain in use.  You 
> should reboot now before making further changes.
> 
> In the example above, my disk contains 4 real partitions.
> Of course, we can enter "Ignore" and the changes are made, but it's tedious.
> This bug appears on all the computers I have tried here.
> Is this a new kernel feature or a parted bug?
> Best regards.

This also came in via the bug reporter, but for those that don't follow
that this is a kernel regression that will be addressed in updated
kernels. Ends up they changed the return value for BLKPG_DEL_PARTITION
which breaks parted and other applications that expect ENXIO instead of
ENOMEM. partprobe is the easy way to demonstrate the
problem that you see above.

The fix should be in kernel 5.8.10 and 5.9rc5 and later.

Brian

-- 
Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT) - weldr.io - lorax - parted - pykickstart