Bug#794849: closed by Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> (Re: Bug#794849: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install)

Thanks Ben for the advice and sorry for the latency. The steps you're suggesting are indeed more straightforward. However, the generated .deb packages still fail to install properly. I repeated the procedure on several fresh Debian 8.1 installations, using default settings in the installer, with the same outcome.

After some digging, I realized that the root failure seems to first occur inside the running kernel (!!), during the dpkg installation. Below is the relevant dmesg output during dpkg -i:

[ 708.498832] device-mapper: uevent: version 1.0.3

[ 708.498991] device-mapper: ioctl: 4.27.0-ioctl (2013-10-30) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com

[ 709.089486] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block/inode numbers, no debug enabled

[ 709.095776] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536

[ 709.108028] ntfs: driver 2.1.30 [Flags: R/W MODULE].

[ 709.119640] QNX4 filesystem 0.2.3 registered.

[ 709.190614] raid6: mmxx1 4992 MB/s

[ 709.258663] raid6: mmxx2 5880 MB/s

[ 709.326691] raid6: sse1x1 4514 MB/s

[ 709.394717] raid6: sse1x2 5192 MB/s

[ 709.462765] raid6: sse2x1 9530 MB/s

[ 709.530787] raid6: sse2x2 11756 MB/s

[ 709.530790] raid6: using algorithm sse2x2 (11756 MB/s)

[ 709.530791] raid6: using ssse3x1 recovery algorithm

[ 709.532132] xor: automatically using best checksumming function:

[ 709.570816] avx : 20117.000 MB/sec

[ 709.583698] Btrfs loaded

[ 709.587963] fuse init (API version 7.23)

[ 709.633347] EXT4-fs (sda2): unable to read superblock

[ 709.634932] EXT4-fs (sda2): unable to read superblock

[ 709.636302] EXT4-fs (sda2): unable to read superblock

[ 709.638439] XFS (sda2): Invalid superblock magic number

[ 709.641380] FAT-fs (sda2): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

[ 709.641576] FAT-fs (sda2): bogus number of reserved sectors

[ 709.641643] FAT-fs (sda2): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem

[ 709.642860] FAT-fs (sda2): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

[ 709.643015] FAT-fs (sda2): bogus number of reserved sectors

[ 709.643080] FAT-fs (sda2): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem

[ 709.648183] ntfs: (device sda2): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is invalid.

[ 709.648322] ntfs: (device sda2): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.

[ 709.648423] ntfs: (device sda2): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.

[ 709.650203] MINIX-fs: unable to read superblock

[ 709.651596] attempt to access beyond end of device

[ 709.651598] sda2: rw=16, want=3, limit=2

[ 709.651600] hfsplus: unable to find HFS+ superblock

[ 709.653236] qnx4: no qnx4 filesystem (no root dir).

[ 709.654695] You didn't specify the type of your ufs filesystem

>>>WARNING<<< Wrong ufstype may corrupt your filesystem, default is ufstype=old

[ 709.657400] hfs: can't find a HFS filesystem on dev sda2

The EXT4-fs, FAT-fs, and ntfs errors seems suspicious, since the hardware doesn't seem faulty. Moreover, I ran this inside different virtual machines, all failing in the same way.

Let me know if you'd need any extra information.

Stefan

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Debian Bug Tracking System <owner@bugs.debian.org> wrote:

This is an automatic notification regarding your Bug report
which was filed against the src:linux package:

#794849: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install

It has been closed by Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>.

Their explanation is attached below along with your original report.
If this explanation is unsatisfactory and you have not received a
better one in a separate message then please contact Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> by
replying to this email.

--
794849: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=794849
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
To: 794849-done@bugs.debian.org
Cc:
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2015 18:21:09 +0100
Subject: Re: Bug#794849: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install
On Fri, 2015-08-07 at 12:30 +0200, Stefan Bucur wrote:
> Source: linux
> Severity: serious
> Justification: fails to build from source (but built successfully in the past)
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> * What led up to the situation?
>
> I was trying to create a custom kernel package by following the steps
> at https://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html.
>
> I changed the ABI version from "4" to "4-s2e". I customized the
> kernel configuration using "make localmodconfig". Then, I built the
> dpkg packages for the 586 subarchitecture (both linux-image and linux
> -headers).
[...]

It sounds like you've done things in the wrong order or the wrong
directory, because this package can be and is being built from source.
If there's any bug here, it would be in the kernel-handbook package,
but I'm pretty sure it's stil correct.

It is generally easier to build custom kernels using this approach:
<http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html#s-common-building>.

Ben.

--
Ben Hutchings
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stefan Bucur <stefan.bucur@gmail.com>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Cc:
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2015 12:30:12 +0200
Subject: linux: custom linux-image packages fail to install
Source: linux
Severity: serious
Justification: fails to build from source (but built successfully in the past)

Dear Maintainer,

* What led up to the situation?

I was trying to create a custom kernel package by following the steps at https://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-common-tasks.html.

I changed the ABI version from "4" to "4-s2e". I customized the kernel configuration using "make localmodconfig". Then, I built the dpkg packages for the 586 subarchitecture (both linux-image and linux-headers).

* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
ineffective)?

Subsequently, I also tried using make-kpkg, but the result was the same. The resulting dpkg package behaved the same (see below).

* What was the outcome of this action?

Building the dpkg packages went OK. However, when I ran "sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586_3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3_i386.deb", I got a warning "WARNING: missing /lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586", followed by another set of errors, including some error messages originating from the kernel. At the end, the package was left in an inconsistent state:

$ sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586_3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 31856 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586_3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3_i386.deb ...
Unpacking linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 (3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3) over (3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3) ...
Setting up linux-image-3.16.0-4-s2e-586 (3.16.7-ckt11-1+deb8u3) ...
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-s2e-586
WARNING: missing /lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586
Ensure all necessary drivers are built into the linux image!
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: WARNING: could not open /var/tmp/mkinitramfs_cvTqVt/lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586/modules.order: No such file or directory
depmod: WARNING: could not open /var/tmp/mkinitramfs_cvTqVt/lib/modules/3.16.0-4-s2e-586/modules.builtin: No such file or directory
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub:
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-s2e-586
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-s2e-586
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-686-pae
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-686-pae
done

I checked the contents of /lib/modules, and found that there is a 3.16.0-4-586 directory, but not an "-s2e" one, in addition to the one corresponding to the current kernel:

$ ls -l /lib/modules
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 7 12:19 3.16.0-4-586
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 7 11:17 3.16.0-4-686-pae

* What outcome did you expect instead?

I would have expected the dpkg package to install successfully on the machine.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.1
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)