Bug 327505

Summary: Remove "Boot Installed System" option from Installation Mode dialog
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 11.0 Reporter: Thomas Leske <leskets>
Component: InstallationAssignee: Lukas Ocilka <locilka>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity: Enhancement    
Priority: P5 - None CC: coolo, forgotten_CxVz4LpaB5, jsuchome, locilka, mc, snwint, taroth
Version: Alpha 2   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: x86-64   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Beta-Customer Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: Screenshot of the new Installation Mode dialog

Description Thomas Leske 2007-09-22 18:30:26 UTC
When I boot my system the usual way from hard disk, login on the 
console works fine.

After booting via 'Boot Installed System' I get the following 
failure message for a valid username and password:
'No Mail

 Error in service module!'

Invalid logins are detected. Unfortunately messages do not get
logged to /var/log/messages.

I did not try with the default pam configuration yet.
However I think that login in a recovery situation should not 
depend on pam. I suggest booting to runlevel S or starting
a root shell instead of init.

Here is my configuration /etc/pam.d/login anyways:
#%PAM-1.0
auth	 requisite	pam_nologin.so
auth	 required	pam_securetty.so
auth	required	pam_env.so
auth	required	pam_unix2.so	
account  include 	common-account
password include	common-password
session  required	pam_loginuid.so	
session	 include	common-session
session  required	pam_lastlog.so	nowtmp 
session  optional       pam_mail.so standard
session  optional	pam_ck_connector.so
Comment 1 Michael Calmer 2007-10-08 11:18:59 UTC
I need soem more informations:

How do you get to "Boot Installed System" . Please descibe exactly what you did.

Enable debug in the pam modules you use and try to get a log (is syslog started?) Please attache the log when you get it.
Comment 2 Thomas Leske 2007-10-09 08:16:57 UTC
I could reproduce the issue with the kde installation CD for 10.3rc1:
From the boot menu I selected "Installation" and continued to the dialog "Installation Mode" where I selected "other options", "Boot installed system" and my root device (an lvm2 device on top of md).

I am afraid there is no log even with debug options enabled, so that I do not think syslog is started. (Allegedly syslog is shut down during reboot, however.) "Boot installed system" does not seem to start any service in 10.3 (or the messages are replaced to quickly by the login prompt). For 10.2 "Boot installed system" worked much more slowly.

In 10.3 the other consoles only show irrelevant logs of the X-Server of the installation system that was shut down.

The issue also arises when I use the 10.2 installation CD to boot 10.3.
Comment 3 Michael Calmer 2007-10-09 08:50:24 UTC
I was able to reproduce it. 

For me it looks like this functionality is broken. 
Let's ask the YaST people.
Comment 4 Michal Zugec 2007-10-09 21:48:20 UTC
pam -> yast2 users
Comment 5 Jiří Suchomel 2007-10-10 07:45:02 UTC
"Boot installed system" is a feature of installation (->locilka)

> The issue also arises when I use the 10.2 installation CD to boot 10.3.

Here it would not surprise me, as with "Boot installed system" you are using kernel (and probably other parts of system) from the installation media.

What is not clear to me is if you have used the same media (e.g. 10.3 final) as is the system you are trying to boot.

(But I'm not an expert here, these are just rundom thoughts)
Comment 6 Michael Calmer 2007-10-10 08:43:52 UTC
> What is not clear to me is if you have used the same media (e.g. 10.3 final)
> as is the system you are trying to boot.

I did a test:

* installed system is 10.3 final
* boot DVD is 10.3 final.

=> the same result. I got very fast a login prompt. It looks like no additional services were started. 
Comment 7 Lukas Ocilka 2007-10-15 13:49:13 UTC
What "Boot installed system" actually does is this:

  * write Linuxrc::WriteYaSTInf ($["Root" : root_part]);
  * close YaST, return to the Linuxrc

Linuxrc than takes the "Root" parameter and boots from the partition.
Linuxrc -> snwint
Comment 8 Steffen Winterfeldt 2007-10-26 14:00:07 UTC
Sorry, can't reproduce it. Works for me nicely.
Comment 9 Steffen Winterfeldt 2007-10-26 14:33:09 UTC
Michael just went by and showed me that it does not work on his notebook. :-)
Comment 10 Steffen Winterfeldt 2007-10-26 14:37:58 UTC
Unfortunately there is not much to fix; it's rather conceptually broken.

I'm all for removing that option in SL 11.0 (it's quite hidden anyway) or
replacing it with something that has a chance to work (like using kexec).
Comment 11 Lukas Ocilka 2007-10-29 08:48:02 UTC
As I already wrote: Installation only writes 'Root: /some/partition' to install.inf and exits to Linuxrc. There's nothing for me to do. Linuxrc does all that stuff with booting and so.

If there is a conceptual issue, please, make it clear. Anyway, redesign needs blessing from product/project management.
Comment 12 Steffen Winterfeldt 2007-10-29 10:22:22 UTC
True, presently linuxrc tries to do something. Like mounting the root
partition and starting init from there. That concept is from initrd-less
times (not to mention udev) and pretty much about never works nowadays.

YaST should just pass the kernel & initrd it wants to run to kexec.
Alternatively it could pass them to linuxrc which would run kexec, but there
simply is no point to it.
Comment 13 Stephan Kulow 2007-11-07 10:28:37 UTC
I'm confused. How can it work (#8) if it's fundamentally broken? 

I'm just wondering - if it does not work at all and can never have been and we only got one bug report about it, removing the option sounds like the right choice.
Comment 14 Steffen Winterfeldt 2007-11-07 10:50:27 UTC
Because it doesn't work in comment 9.

As mentioned, it used to be a sensible idea in the past (where kernels
stayed more or less compatible across releases). Now our initrd does a lot
of magic stuff and it is not a good idea to skip that (what the current
approach does).

Quite frankly, I've never used that option myself, but at least some people
seem to have found uses for it. I think the general idea is that it helps
if the boot loader config is broken and you want to start the system somehow.
Comment 15 Stephan Kulow 2007-11-07 11:01:21 UTC
So I'd sugggest: remove that option and put more emphasize on yast2-repair. Having two options with too little testing doesn't sound like a good thing.

Michl, fine with you?
Comment 16 Michael Loeffler 2007-11-08 10:52:43 UTC
Fine with me :-)
Comment 17 Stephan Kulow 2007-11-08 11:09:36 UTC
OK, so let's remove this option. Jana, Tanja, can you please check if and where this option is described.
Comment 18 Lukas Ocilka 2007-11-08 12:00:17 UTC
Changing:

* "Boot Installed System: Login fails (maybe because of a changed pam 
   configuration?)" ->  "Remove 'Boot Installed System' option from
   Installation Mode dialog".

* openSUSE 10.3 -> openSUSE 11.0

* Major -> Enhancement
Comment 19 Jana Jaeger 2007-11-09 07:54:18 UTC
Coolo, you may congratulate the doc team on proactively not describing the Boot Installed System option ;) I did some extensive grepping and couldn't find it anywhere.
Comment 20 Lukas Ocilka 2007-11-09 12:42:22 UTC
Boot-installed-system option has been removed from Installation Mode dialog (yast2-installation-2.16.3) which allowed me to redesign the dialog also by adding some self-descriptive icons. Screenshot will be attached.
Comment 21 Lukas Ocilka 2007-11-09 12:43:13 UTC
Created attachment 182789 [details]
Screenshot of the new Installation Mode dialog
Comment 22 Lukas Ocilka 2007-11-09 12:43:55 UTC
FIXED / Implemented
Comment 23 Lukas Ocilka 2007-11-22 10:02:24 UTC
*** Bug 288202 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 24 Lukas Ocilka 2008-04-21 14:57:38 UTC
*** Bug 381935 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 25 Lukas Ocilka 2008-05-07 12:19:30 UTC
*** Bug 384396 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***