Low prio feature request: qubes-dom0-update could check whether /boot is mounted

[David Hobach]

Dear developers,

it might make sense to check before updates to /boot whether it is
actually mounted by checking whether there are any files in /boot.

I just noticed that qubes-dom0-update wrote to /boot without it being
mounted (i.e. it wrote to a previously empty folder on /). I usually
don't mount /boot in fstab, because it tends to make the boot process
faster by a couple of seconds (& grub doesn't really seem to need it as
it is more low-level).

Just a low prio suggestion.

Kind Regards
David

[Zrubecz Laszlo]

On 27 July 2014 12:08, David Hobach <tri...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:

> it might make sense to check before updates to /boot whether it is actually
> mounted by checking whether there are any files in /boot.
>
> I just noticed that qubes-dom0-update wrote to /boot without it being
> mounted (i.e. it wrote to a previously empty folder on /). I usually don't
> mount /boot in fstab,

And how should the update script decide if you deleted/lost/or just
not mounted your boot partition???


If You made such customizations, You should take care of it later as well...


IMHO.

--
Zrubi

[Andrew B]

Using AEM (an 'official' feature and not a customization) also leaves you, on ITL's recommendation, with no mounted /boot. An easily bypass-able reminder to mount /boot before continuing when yum is about to touch files in an unmounted /boot would be a helpful reminder. Unfortunately, the qubes-dom0-update script really has no idea what packages are being upgraded (let alone if any of those packages' scripts touch /boot), and maintaining a fork of yum to add this functionality would probably not be worth the effort. If anyone knows of a better solution, though, I'm all for it.

Andrew

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

Registered here:
https://wiki.qubes-os.org/ticket/885

--
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

[David Hobach]

That was my thought as well.
One can even try to avoid the reminder, if there's a /boot in fstab with
noauto by trying to mount /boot & checking whether that works.

Otherwise I only see the option to ask the yum developers about
providing a related option.

@Marek: Thanks for tracking this.

[cprise]

Yeah, failing to mount AEM stick once before an update meant I had to
manually update some files on the stick. A warning that appears if AEM
is installed would be quite helpful.