Bug#802025: /etc/mtab is not a symlink or not pointing to /proc/self/mounts

[Martin Pitt]

Hello Steve,

Steve McIntyre [2015-10-17 21:31 +0100]:
> On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 09:12:27PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> >Am 17.10.2015 um 17:46 schrieb Michael Biebl:
> >> Am 17.10.2015 um 00:53 schrieb Ilya Sukhanov:
> >>> Package: systemd
> >>> Version: 227-2
> >>> Severity: grave
> >>>
> >>> System freezes at boot with "/etc/mtab is not a symlink or not pointing
> >>> to /proc/self/mounts..."
> >>>
> >>> To reproduce install debian from stretch_di_alpha3 amd64 image (used
> >
> >> Sounds like a bug in debian-installer. It shouldn't setup /etc/mtab as
> >> real file.

Indeed. So having a hard failure about it was at least useful for
something..

> I've just committed a fix for that in d-i.

Thanks!

> >Martin, I guess there is some value in keeping that hard freeze for now,
> >which should help us identify such faulty software.
> >
> >I wouldn't release stretch with that behaviour, but having it in
> >stretch/sid for a while is probably ok.

Yes, agreed. Otherwise we'll still fight this in the next two
releases.

> Right now, it's going to stop people from being able to install
> stretch at all. Please take out this retarded mis-feature. By all
> means, complain and warn about the problem, but hanging hard is just
> not helpful for our users here.

The plan is indeed to stop that freeze, see the upstream bug. We'll do
that with util-linux 2.27.1 which stops looking at /etc/mtab. So this
won't go into Stretch.

Thanks,

Martin
-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)