Re: RFC: Reboot behavior for kexec-tools package
On Fri, 22 Sept 2023 at 20:41, Khalid Aziz <khalid@debian.org> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I implemented automatic kexec reboot support to kexec-tools package many
> years ago when Debian used init. It worked well except for some corner
> cases. To support this, I also added a package config option to enable
> kexec reboots on reboot command. Since Debian started using systemd,
> automatic kexec reboot had been hit or miss depending upon the changes
> in systemd. I got it back to working state by requiring users to do
> kexec reboots using "systemctl kexec". Now Debian has switched to
> systemd fully and I am removing init scripts from kexec-tools package.
> Systemd maintainers made a change to systemctl command around 2021 that
> caused "systemctl kexec" to no longer work the same way again. In short,
> systemctl now has taken over the task of loading a kexec kernel which
> was previously delegated to systemd service provided by kexec-tools.
> systemctl loads kexec'able kernel only on the systems that support boot
> loader spec which Debian does not. Now kexec-tools package no longer has
> working automatic kexec reboot.
>
> To solve this problem in a reliable and consistent way, I am considering
> changing the way kexec reboots are handled by kexec-tools package.
> Current behavior (when it worked) is:
>
> - If config option "Should kexec-tools handle reboots?" is set to true,
> a reboot command will cause a kexec reboot.
> - With config option "Should kexec-tools handle reboots?" set to true, a
> cold reboot requires using the command "coldreboot" which is a script
> installed by kexec-tools package.
>
> I want to change the behavior to:
>
> - No package config option to do automatic kexec reboot.
> - "reboot" command causes a cold reboot
> - Use "kexec-reboot" command to do a kexec reboot. "kexec-reboot" is a
> script installed by kexec-tools package.
> - kexec-tools package no longer provides coldreboot script which is no
> longer necessary.
>
> Any comments/feedback? I intend to proceed with implementing new
> behavior next week after Wednesday unless there are objections or other
> ideas.
Hi,
In the next version of systemd, due in trixie in a couple of months,
we are going to move the kexec-if-loaded behaviour from systemctl to
logind itself. Also, we are going to integrate it with the new
soft-reboot feature, so that it also automatically soft-reboots if a
new rootfs has been loaded. So I would recommend to do no automation
at all in kexec-tools, and let systemd handle it, so that it can be
integrated with other reboot types and so on. Thanks.
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