[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#768657: Bug#768657: sysvinit: Please provide xen virtual console in inittab

[Cyril Brulebois]

Hi,

Steve Langasek <vorlon at debian.org> (2014-11-10):
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 02:39:28AM -0500, Gedalya wrote:
> > On 11/10/2014 02:19 AM, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > >It's not for the sysvinit-core package to fix up the installer's handling of
> > >consoles, when sysvinit-core is not installed.  Reassigning this to the
> > >debian-installer package.
> > And how could it possibly be debian-installer's job to modify a file that is
> > part of your package, when the package is not installed?
> > I find your response incomprehensible. This bug is about making sure
> > inittab, part of sysvinit-core, supports the console on the platform is is
> > running on.
> > Currently sysvinit-core is defective in not doing so. My comment about
> > debian-installer was just so that you could see an example for code that
> > handles this, and it explains why the maintainers of this package
> > coincidentally haven't had to worry about this problem thus far.
> > One way or another, to reproduce this problem all one needs to do is to
> > install sysvinit-core on a xen VM, with debian-installer nowhere in sight.
> > I also don't understand why #745260 was fixed (exactly the same problem) and
> > this one somehow not.
> 
> Ok, I misunderstood what the bug was that you were reporting.  I thought you
> were saying that the installer sets up /etc/inittab, but that this doesn't
> cause the console to work on systems where sysvinit-core is not being
> installed.
> 
> I think fixing bug #745260 in sysvinit-core is dubious; I really think that
> the console setup should be done as part of the installer, not as part of
> init's maintainer scripts.  However, since we are no longer installing
> sysvinit-core, it's a legitimate question whether the installer should be
> changed to create /etc/inittab on its own if it doesn't already exist, or if
> the installer should entirely hand over control of this file to the sysvinit
> package.
> 
> I think we should get input from the installer team on this.

let's pretend for a moment that I know nothing about inittab, and that I'm
focussing on installation scenarios only, not upgrades.

It looks to me that this is an issue different from yet similar to the
one described in [1], where systemd w/o dbus would lead to no console on
vt 2-6.

 1. https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2014/11/msg00127.html

Would it make any sense to have $something created by d-i, consumed by
both systemd and sysvinit to make sure consoles are available? If
maintainers of both systems can come up with something suitable for
everyone, let's do that? Maybe some kind of /etc/inittab.compat which
could be created by d-i and could be defaulted to by relevant packages
in case /etc/inittab is missing and yet needed?

Of course if I'm conflating issues that are orthogonal, please say so
and we'll track both issues separately.

Mraw,
KiBi.
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