Bug#805553: systemd 228-1 fails to boot: hangs in Create Volatile Files and Directories

[Felipe Sateler]

Control: tags -1 moreinfo

On 19 November 2015 at 09:59, Lorenz Hübschle-Schneider
<lorenz-dev at lgh-alumni.de> wrote:
> Package: systemd
> Version: 228-1
> Severity: critical
> Justification: breaks the whole system
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> after the upgrade to systemd 228-1, my system failed to boot. It got stuck in "Create Volatile Files and Directories...", which I cancelled after a good minute. I had to downgrade systemd and related packages (udev, etc) to be able to boot again.
>
> My system has a few differences from an "ordinary" desktop machine, namely /home is an NFSv3 (automount) and authentication is performed against an LDAP server on the network. Somehow this causes an ordering cycle with sysinit.target, which is resolved by deleting console-setup.service/start (but that's an old issue and doesn't stop the system from booting).
>
> I have now downgraded back to 227-3, so please disregard the version numbers of installed packages below.
>
> The journal is of very little help, everything is normal until:
>
> Nov 19 13:27:26 i10pc82 systemd[1]: Reached target Local File Systems.
> Nov 19 13:27:26 i10pc82 kernel: EXT4-fs (sda4): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: errors=remount-ro
> Nov 19 13:27:26 i10pc82 systemd[1]: Starting Create Volatile Files and Directories...
> Nov 19 13:27:26 i10pc82 systemd[1]: home.automount: Got automount request for /home, triggered by 524 (systemd-tmpfile
> )
> Nov 19 13:28:32 i10pc82 kernel: sysrq: SysRq : Emergency Sync
> Nov 19 13:28:32 i10pc82 kernel: Emergency Sync complete
> Nov 19 13:28:33 i10pc82 kernel: sysrq: SysRq : Emergency Remount R/O
>
> At this point, there is no network connectivity yet, so the amount request cannot proceed as /home is on the network (NFS). Why does systemd-tmpfile trigger this automount?

I see that in 228 the following has changed:

-v /home 0755 - - -
-v /srv 0755 - - -
+Q /home 0755 - - -
+q /srv 0755 - - -

Do you still experience the boot problem if you change back to v the directive?

Also do you have the same problem if you disable automount (ie, let it
become a normal mount)?

> I set the severity to critical as this seems to render systems unbootable if /home is a network filesystem. I hope that's not too drastic.

My guess is that the automount part is part of the problem here. If
so, we should lower severity.


-- 

Saludos,
Felipe Sateler