Bug#891434: Bug#923839: shim-signed: setup of shim-signed failed with 'Could not delete variable: No space left on device'

[Niels Thykier]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2019 21:57:02 +0000 Colin Watson <cjwatson at debian.org> wrote:
> Control: reassign 891434 src:grub2
> Control: forcemerge 891434 923839
> 
> On Tue, Mar 05, 2019 at 03:43:31PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > But I'm reassigning this bug to grub2, because I think the right answer for
> > nearly all efibootmgr write failures on update of the bootloader packages is
> > that grub should not be writing to nvram at all.  Rather, in the common case
> > of a bootloader upgrade, the contents being written to nvram will match what
> > is already there.  By detecting that there are no changes, we save ourselves
> > a write, which in the exceptional cases sidesteps a write failure, and in
> > the common case, reduces wear on the nvram which may have limited write
> > cycles.
> 
> This is the same as #891434, which I've been working on recently, and at
> a high level you and I have reached the same conclusions about what's
> needed.  (I've also been discussing it with Steve McIntyre, again
> reaching similar conclusions.)
> 
> [...]
> 
> I got this almost working at the Cambridge BSP today before I ran out of
> time (very nearly bricking my own laptop in the process ...).  I need to
> add suitable --debug messages, finish getting it working, ensure that
> it's only rewriting variables where needed, and generally tidy up the
> fairly large pile of code involved, so there's still probably at least
> four hours of work left to do on it, not to mention upstream review.
> However, I'm reasonably hopeful that I'll have this done for buster.
> 
> -- 
> Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at debian.org]
> 
> 

Hi Colin,

Thanks for working on this. :)

I am glad to hear that we might have something almost ready thanks to
your hard work. :)

Thanks,
~Niels