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Date:      Wed, 3 Mar 2021 10:55:17 -0500
From:      Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org>
To:        Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
Cc:        Brandon Bergren <bdragon@freebsd.org>, "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@freebsd.org>, Ed Maste <emaste@freebsd.org>, src-committers <src-committers@freebsd.org>, dev-commits-src-all@freebsd.org, dev-commits-src-main@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: git: 2c26d77d989a - main - Remove /boot/efi from mtree, missed in 0b7472b3d8d2.
Message-ID:  <6e52fee6-a2fd-584f-757e-e77a8f8ea8eb@freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfqh%2BKtueVsmDZh-SCVQeXYc-7f28BCJYJYbUxr-cotbpQ@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <202103031253.123CrxKG051357@gndrsh.dnsmgr.net> <14d09680-1036-4a7e-8a0e-c3063cac8bc9@www.fastmail.com> <dbffbfce-feff-29a0-abce-7d89dbbced7f@freebsd.org> <CANCZdfqh%2BKtueVsmDZh-SCVQeXYc-7f28BCJYJYbUxr-cotbpQ@mail.gmail.com>

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On 3/3/21 10:38 AM, Warner Losh wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 7:13 AM Nathan Whitehorn=20
> <nwhitehorn@freebsd.org <mailto:nwhitehorn@freebsd.org>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 3/3/21 9:05 AM, Brandon Bergren wrote:
>     > On Wed, Mar 3, 2021, at 6:53 AM, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
>     >> What am I missing here?=C2=A0 One place I am being told this is =
run in
>     >> an environment that may not even be an EFI booted system, and in=

>     >> another place it is being used as a test if something is mounted=

>     >> on it, which should only be true on an EFI booted system.
>     > That the script in question is a generic script that runs as
>     part of bsdinstall on every platform and has to be universal.
>     >
>     > The actual *problem* here is that
>     usr.sbin/bsdinstall/scripts/bootconfig has a default case that is
>     >=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 *)=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=
=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 die "Unsupported arch $(uname -m) for
>     UEFI install"
>     >
>     > which then causes the main script to bail out, leaving the
>     system in a half-installed state.
>     >
>     > If that had just been an exit 0 this would have never been a
>     problem, I suppose.
>     >
>     > Before the original change that broke this, there was a check
>     that the script was not running on powerpc or mips platforms
>     before running the efi bits, but this got taken out.
>     >
>
>     Well, incidentally. The bootconfig script needs to know if there
>     is an
>     ESP it should configure, but the signalling mechanism (the
>     presence of
>     the ESP mount point) was being broken by mtree making that director=
y
>     unconditionally even on systems that don't use EFI. So then
>     bootconfig
>     tried to set it up, but failed later on, because there was no EFI
>     loader
>     to set up. The mtree change makes the ESP mount point only exist on=

>     systems with an ESP.
>
>
> So you made a unilateral change, without discussion of the bigger=20
> design, to something without even asking the original person who made=20
> the change to mtree about it for what sounds like an obscure case in=20
> the installer that could be solved in a different way? It's trivial=20
> enough to look at the boot method sysctl and skip the EFI update if we =

> didn't boot EFI (and if by change that's not on all systems, it's easy =

> enough to add it on all systems). I have no notion about why that=20
> wasn't considered, at least, before jumping in and taking people by=20
> surprise.
>
> Next time, talk to people first. That's the whole point of having=20
> review tools, mailing list and git blame.
>
> Warner

This method of testing was in the original review here posted on Feb.=20
23: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D28897

The description of the test procedure you're objecting to was even in=20
the summary! Then we had a discussion by email about the change to mtree =

on the committers list on Feb. 28 to resolve a bug affecting PowerPC in=20
the patch reviewed and approved by you. I then waited several days and=20
had a long thread for several days on the mailing list about the=20
approach. coming up with this short patch -- again, as a bug fix to a=20
reviewed approach.

We can change the logic -- that's fine! But, to paraphrase, the reason=20
we have reviews is so people like you can look at the review and note=20
these kinds of problems when they are reviewed, not after the commit=20
goes in. There's a significant amount of whiplash when you do get=20
patches reviewed, approved, and then the person who reviewed and=20
approved them accuses you of "taking people by surprise".

The installer *does* mount the partition in advance, so checking whether =

there is a mounted file system is a perfectly reasonable test to do. We=20
could also check fstab. I would like to understand what is actually=20
wrong here first, though. Especially after this misfire -- which is=20
problematic for reasons that are still not clear to me, since there are=20
a number of standard directories in hier(7) not in mtree -- I want to=20
make sure we actually do have consensus about what is changing and why.
-Nathan





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