Bug#765622: base-files: Dracut and systemd doesn't recognize / as sysroot

[Santiago Vila]

reassign 765622 systemd,dracut
retitle 765622 Please support /usr being in a separate partition.
severity 765622 normal
thanks

On Thu, 16 Oct 2014, Krzysztof Sobiecki wrote:

> Package: base-files
> Version: 7.6
> Severity: minor
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> After switching to dracut from initramfs-tools and generating a new
> initramfs system didn't boot up.
> Systemd failed to switch to new sysroot because it didn't recognized /
> as root. "/" didn't contained os-release file only a symlink to
> ../usr/lib/os-release. 
> I have a separate / and /usr partitions so link to nowhere might be a
> problem.
> 
> To fix it I have copied /usr/lib/os-release to /etc/os-release
> and system started to work as intended.
> [...]

So I'm being told basically that either dracut or systemd "check" that
/etc/os-release is a real file before considering the filesystem is ok
to switch to it, and I have to make /etc/os-release a real file so
that the "check" does not fail.

I think this makes no sense at all.

Since /etc/os-release may be a symlink, it naturally follows that
checking that /etc/os-release is a real file is no longer a good check.

So, dracut and systemd maintainers (not sure who is to blame here,
that's why I reassigned this to both packages), please do not abort
the boot process based on the result of a check that may easily fail.

Use a better check instead.

Thanks.