[pkg-cryptsetup-devel] Bug#548900: udev update killed my LVM2 boot (sed: not found)

[Jonas Meurer]

clone 548900 -1
reassign -1 busybox
retitle -1 busybox should invoke update-initramfs in postinst
thanks

hello,

On 30/09/2009 Sheridan Hutchinson wrote:
> 2009/9/29 Jonas Meurer <jonas at freesources.org>:
> > please try to provide more detailed information. how did you break your
> > system? was it caused by a udev upgrade? or a cryptsetup upgrade?
> 
> The problem was that the busybox package was not installed (contrary
> to my initial report) on either of my machines when the initramfs was
> built on 30/09/09.  The last time that the busybox package was
> installed on the machines was 04/09/09.  The last time that a
> previously working initramfs was built was 02/09/09, prior to the
> removal of busybox.  See #492560 as to why I removed it.
> 
> I did not realise that removing the busybox package didn't immediately
> trigger an initramfs rebuild trigger (I expected it to but didn't
> verify it).  Hence when it rebuilt on 30/09/09, it did not go in the
> image and I could not boot my machines.
> 
> Summary:
> a.) udev is nothing to do with this, it merely correctly triggered an
> initramfs rebuild
> b.) adding or removing of busybox should cause an initramfs trigger to rebuild

yes, i agree with you that this is a bug in busybox, hence cloning
retitling and reassigned to busybox.

> c.) busybox should be a hard dependency on lvm2, or cryptsetup, as
> INDISPENSABLE for people with encrypted LVM2's to be able to boot

no, lvm2, cryptsetup, mdadm, etc all can still be used without initramfs
on non-root partititions (or for lvm with lilo), thus a hard dependency
is the wrong way to go.
initramfs-tools already recommends busybox, and installing recommends is
the default in debian since lenny.

additionally update-initramfs warns about missing busybox in case that
you have root on dm-crypt/lvm/dmraid/...:

# update-initramfs -u
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-1-amd64
Warning: Busybox is required for successful boot!

> d.) what is the next move to solve this

i guess the only real bug here is busybox not invoking update-initramfs,
all other issues you discovered where due to your special setup and you
ignoring warnings and docs. i suggest to close the bugreport for that
reason.

greetings,
 jonas