[Bug 2091904] Autopkgtest regression report (initramfs-tools/0.142ubuntu25.5)

[Ubuntu SRU Bot]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted initramfs-tools (0.142ubuntu25.5) for noble have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

initramfs-tools/0.142ubuntu25.5 (amd64, s390x)


Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-
migration/noble/update_excuses.html#initramfs-tools

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2091904

Title:
  IPv6 iBFT boot runs into a timeout

Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in initramfs-tools source package in Noble:
  Fix Committed
Status in initramfs-tools source package in Oracular:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [ Impact ]

  This bug affects IPv6 only networks in combination with booting from
  iSCSI Boot Firmware Table (iBFT). In those setups, there is no DHCPv4
  available. The initramfs will only try DHCPv4 and run into a timeout.

  [ Test Plan ]

  This setup was distilled down to test cases and the new qemu-net-iscsi
  autopkgtest was added.

  The test plan is to check that all autopkgtest were successful. In
  addition testing this version in a cloud environment is possible.

  [ Where problems could occur ]

  The newly added code only increases the initrd by some bytes. The
  changed code is around the network configuration in the initrd and can
  influence network boot with iSCSI. Users with IPv6 in iBFT might still
  want to have IPv4 configured. That should be done by the network
  daemon of the installed system.

  [ Original report ]

  iSCSI Boot Firmware Table (iBFT) can provide the network configuration
  that is needed to boot over iSCSI. The iBFT can contain IPv4 or IPv6
  addresses. local-top/iscsi calls `configure_networking`. The default
  behaviour of `configure_networking` is DHCPv4 on all available
  interfaces (if ip= and ip6= are not set). If iBFT provides IPv6
  addresses and no DHCPv4 server are running, `configure_networking`
  will only try DHCPv4 and run into a timeout.

  Placing the single line "ISCSI_AUTO=true" into
  /etc/iscsi/iscsi.initramfs, or use the kernel boot line option
  "iscsi_auto" will configure the network devices based on iBFT, but the
  code in `local-top/iscsi` will assume that the addresses are IPv4.

  dracut on the other hand has the kernel boot line parameters
  `rd.iscsi.firmware=1` and `rd.iscsi.ibft` and `ibft` as option for the
  `ip` parameter. The `ibft` option is a bit under documented.
  https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/installation_guide/chap-
  anaconda-boot-options mentions `ip=ibft` and dracut.cmdline mentions
  it.

  There are multiple ways to address the timeout with IPv6 iBFT:

  1) Extend `local-top/iscsi` to differentiate between IPv4 and IPv6
  when "iscsi_auto" is used. This information needs to be passed to
  `configure_networking` to only try to bring up that device and
  protocol.

  2) Use `ip=ibft` as indicator to use ibft as source for the network
  configuration. If no ip= parameter is set, local-top/iscsi should
  default to ip=ibft when calling configure_networking.

  Both solutions require passing data to configure_networking.

  Requiring the user to set `ip=off ip6=on` is not a good user
  experience and not a solution in my opinion.

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