Re: [OE-core] [PATCH v3 11/11] image_types_wic.bbclass: depend on grub-efi and systemd-boot on aarch64, systemd-boot on arm

[Mikko Rapeli <mikko.rapeli@linaro.org>]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 14, 2025 at 04:48:50PM -0400, Trevor Woerner wrote:
> On Fri 2025-04-04 @ 07:29:32 PM, Mikko Rapeli via lists.openembedded.org wrote:
> > On x86 family builds, grub and systemd-boot are always included and thus
> > get built and deployed before wic image builds. On aarch64 builds
> > that was not the case. Result is that some builds added systemd-boot binaries
> > to the wic image ESP partition and some not, though bugs in wic plugins
> > contributed here too since missing files were silently ignored.
> > Boot of such images fails since firmware is not able to load the
> > default EFI binaries.
> > 
> > Adding EFI_PROVIDER to WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS is not possible
> > because of parsing order so adding grub-efi and systemd-boot
> > to aarch64 and systemd-boot to arm depends
> > which makes sure their do_deploy is always executed
> > before wic image is generated. Thus systemd-boot and grub
> > binaries will get copied from deploy directory to the wic
> > image ESP partition, and boot of the images succeeds.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Mikko Rapeli <mikko.rapeli@linaro.org>
> > ---
> >  meta/classes-recipe/image_types_wic.bbclass | 2 ++
> >  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
> > 
> > diff --git a/meta/classes-recipe/image_types_wic.bbclass b/meta/classes-recipe/image_types_wic.bbclass
> > index 10888bc12b..b2f450026d 100644
> > --- a/meta/classes-recipe/image_types_wic.bbclass
> > +++ b/meta/classes-recipe/image_types_wic.bbclass
> > @@ -113,6 +113,8 @@ WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_DEFAULT += "bmaptool-native cdrtools-native btrfs-tools-native
> >  # Unified kernel images need objcopy
> >  WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_DEFAULT += "virtual/cross-binutils"
> >  WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS = ""
> > +WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS:aarch64 = "grub-efi systemd-boot"
> > +WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS:arm = "systemd-boot"
> >  WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS:x86 = "syslinux grub-efi systemd-boot os-release"
> >  WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS:x86-64 = "syslinux systemd-boot os-release"
> >  WKS_FILE_DEPENDS_BOOTLOADERS:x86-x32 = "syslinux grub-efi"
> 
> Will this not add grub-efi and systemd-boot to any arm-based (64- or 32-bit)
> images that are built? I realize that many arm builds are moving towards
> grub-efi and systemd-boot, but I'm pretty sure there still exist many that use
> U-Boot by itself, and for these builds adding extra, unused code will not be
> appreciated.
> 
> If anything, this should be behind one or more appropriate *_FEATUREs.

Sadly this variable is in DEPENDS and thus parsed early and thus can't contain
complex statements, not even ${EFI_PROVIDER}. If this is not done, result is build failure
from wic (with patch from this series applied) or worse silently missing EFI bootloader files
from wic images and a boot hang. And these on only some builds which did not run
do_deploy of grub-efi/systemd-boot before do_image_wic.

Here I copy existing behavior from other archs which I presume had similar issues.

If you don't use grub or systemd-boot, then WKS_FILE_DEPENDS can be set to empty
in distro, machine, image etc configs.

Cheers,

-Mikko