[Bug 1893675] [NEW] Autopkgtest failure on latest version of initramfs-tools - lack of partprobe

[Guilherme G. Piccoli]

Public bug reported:

[Impact]
* Currently the initramfs-tools autopkgtest fails for at least AMD64, with the following signature:
"mount: /tmp/autopkgtest.K1r92h/build.zdS/src/mnt: special device /dev/loop0p1 does not exist."

* The reason for that is the test trying immediately to use that
partition on the loop device, but kernel may not have a partition re-
read ioctl issued, so the test may fail as observing a nonexistent
partition.

* The fix proposed here is just to manually run "partprobe" before using
the new to-be-discovered loop partition in the net autopkgtest.

[Test Case]
* Build initramfs-tools in PPA and observe the failure in AMD64 - the signature of the failure is as discussed in the Impact section above.

[Regression Potential]
* Extremely low potential, we are just introducing a partition re-read/probe operation during autopkgtest phase, in order to keep the partition table of loop devices consistent before the test uses it.
* The only potential issue I see with that is if for some reason we don't have partprobe in the autopkgtest environment, but that shouldn't happen since parted package is on ubuntu-standard.

* Notice that this test is not executed in Debian CI given that CI has
no support for VMs, and this test requires that.

** Affects: initramfs-tools (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
     Assignee: Guilherme G. Piccoli (gpiccoli)
         Status: In Progress


** Tags: seg

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1893675

Title:
  Autopkgtest failure on latest version of initramfs-tools - lack of
  partprobe

Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  * Currently the initramfs-tools autopkgtest fails for at least AMD64, with the following signature:
  "mount: /tmp/autopkgtest.K1r92h/build.zdS/src/mnt: special device /dev/loop0p1 does not exist."

  * The reason for that is the test trying immediately to use that
  partition on the loop device, but kernel may not have a partition re-
  read ioctl issued, so the test may fail as observing a nonexistent
  partition.

  * The fix proposed here is just to manually run "partprobe" before
  using the new to-be-discovered loop partition in the net autopkgtest.

  [Test Case]
  * Build initramfs-tools in PPA and observe the failure in AMD64 - the signature of the failure is as discussed in the Impact section above.

  [Regression Potential]
  * Extremely low potential, we are just introducing a partition re-read/probe operation during autopkgtest phase, in order to keep the partition table of loop devices consistent before the test uses it.
  * The only potential issue I see with that is if for some reason we don't have partprobe in the autopkgtest environment, but that shouldn't happen since parted package is on ubuntu-standard.

  * Notice that this test is not executed in Debian CI given that CI has
  no support for VMs, and this test requires that.

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