Bug#1030846: Bug#1030939: e2fsprogs: generates filesystems that grub-install doesn't recognize

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 07:35:51PM +0100, Daniel Leidert wrote:
> 
> As soon as this version hits testing, you have successfully disabled
> the last working environment to use vmdb2 to create images of Ubuntu
> and Debian. As soon as this version hits Testing, one then can no
> longer build images for either any Ubuntu release nor Debian Bullseye
> or older. I can then only build images for Bookworm and Sid. Please
> think about that.

The number of users who use vmdb2 are quite small; for those users who
do, there is a simple fix.  You can either diable the feature using
tune2fs, or you can just make an edit to your /etc/mke2fs.conf file to
not enable the feature.  A one line change to /etc/mke2fs.conf is
hardly what I'd call "impossible".

> You *seriously* break the debootstrap method of installing Debian or
> Ubuntu.

As you have pointed out, this is not a debootstrap issue, since it
doesn't create the file system.  The uestion is in how the file system
is created, and this is not hard to fix.  You can just run "mke2fs -O
^metadata_csum_seed _file_or_block_device_"; you can run "tune2fs -O
^metadata_csum_seed _file_or_block_device"; you can make a one-line
change to /etc/mke2fs.conf.

> You haven't documented how to disable that
> breaking change when creating filesystems for distributions where grub
> does not support this (there is not even a NEWS entry). You haven't
> even announced that breaking change. And yet you are going to break one
> of our two standard methods of installing Debian or Ubuntu. How is any
> of what you have been saying so far addressing any of these issues?

Sorry, as far as I'm concerned, vmdb2 is not that important.  We don't
document in a NEWS entry or anywhere else, how to build a binary that
links against a newer version of glibc so it will work on an older
system.  And I would consider the compiler toolchain to be far more
common a usecase than vmdb2.  Indeed, your use of "toolchain" for file
system utilities.... is a new one for me.  I've never heard the term
"toolchain" used in such a way before.

> I do not understand why you are pushing 1.47.0 over 1.46.6, which you
> had uploaded just five days before the former. You haven't even
> presented a reason yet.

It has anumber of new features that will improve ext4's performance on
highly parallel workloads; it makes it possible for cloud VM's to be
able to safely update the root file systems's UUID while it is
mounted, among other changes.

					- Ted