[Bug 1993541] Re: initramfs need to mount efivarfs because kernel 6.0 deprecated 'efivars' sysfs interface

[Robie Basak]

> kernel 6.0 deprecated efivars sysfs interface [1]

[...]

> I disagree that this belongs in initramfs-tools. Initramfs-tools
should not be responsible for mounting every deprecated filesystem that
some other package providing initramfs hooks requires. This is mdadm's
problem to fix, NOT initramfs-tools (and then mdadm should stop mounting
it as soon as it is fixed to use the not-deprecated firmware interface).

This seems concerning to me. For the development release I agree with
Steve. For HWE kernel SRUs in existing stable releases, shouldn't we be
maintaining compatibility to all of userspace, rather than changing
behaviour for all packages? What if a user is relying on this interface
in their own software? They would reasonably expect an HWE kernel not to
break that. So I think it follows that for SRU purposes we should
maintain userspace in the same state whether or not you booted an HWE
kernel. So that should be done somewhere that is guaranteed that all
users will receive the fix, and surely that's not mdadm?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1993541

Title:
  initramfs need to mount efivarfs because kernel 6.0 deprecated
  'efivars' sysfs interface

Status in OEM Priority Project:
  In Progress
Status in mdadm package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in mdadm source package in Jammy:
  In Progress
Status in mdadm source package in Kinetic:
  In Progress
Status in mdadm package in Debian:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [ Impact ]

  kernel 6.0 deprecated efivars sysfs interface [1]. For Intel VROC
  RAID, mdadm needs initramfs to mount efivarfs instead.

  [1] The commit:
  commit 0f5b2c69a4cbe4166ca24b76d5ada98ed2867741
  Author: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb at kernel.org>
  Date: Mon Jun 20 13:34:03 2022 +0200

      efi: vars: Remove deprecated 'efivars' sysfs interface

  [ Test Plan ]

  1. Install initramfs-tools
  2. update-initramfs -u
  3. unmkinitramfs initrd.img-`uname -r` /tmp/extract-initramfs
  4. Check if boot script 00_mount_efivarfs exists in directory /tmp/extract-initramfs/main/scripts/init-top/
  5. Check /tmp/extract-initramfs/main/scripts/init-top/ORDER if the boot script 00_mount_efivarfs will be execute before udev.

  [ Where problems could occur ]

  Not sure if there any other tools/utilities also need to mount efivarfs as early as mdadm but the probability of file conflict should be very low.
  Also, there are no impact mounting efivarfs multiple times.
  mount: /sys/firmware/efi/efivars: efivarfs already mounted on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars.

  [ Scope ]

  Jammy

  [ Other Info ]

  The private bug link
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/somerville/+bug/1990231

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