Re: [OE-core][PATCH] wic/engine: warn about old host debugfs for standalone directory copy

Ross Burton
2026-02-09T18:13:38Z

On 18 Dec 2025, at 13:48, Daniel Dragomir <daniel.dragomir@windriver.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 12/18/25 13:46, Paul Barker wrote:
>> On Thu, 2025-12-18 at 11:34 +0000, Paul Barker wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2025-12-18 at 12:15 +0200, Dragomir, Daniel via
>>> lists.openembedded.org wrote:
>>>> When wic is used in standalone mode, it relies on host tools such as
>>>> debugfs. For directory host->image copies into ext* partitions, wic
>>>> uses scripted debugfs "-f" input with multiple mkdir/write commands.
>>>>
>>>> Older host debugfs versions (< 1.47) may behave unreliably in this
>>>> mode and can silently miss files. This does not affect builds using
>>>> debugfs from OE where the version is known to be sufficiently new.
>>>>
>>>> Add a debugfs version check and emit a warning when an older host
>>>> debugfs is detected. The warning is shown once per run and does not
>>>> alter execution.
>>>
>>> If the risk here is silently missing files, resulting in a corrupted
>>> rootfs or worse, I think this should be a hard error.
>>>
>>> Consider the case where someone relies on a device having a firewall
>>> enabled, but /etc/nftables.conf is silently missed during construction
>>> of the rootfs ext4 image. That could result in all ports being open.
>
> This failure can only occur when copying directories into an already
> created WIC image with an ext* partition. It does not affect image or
> rootfs construction.
>
> My understanding is that `wic cp` is a post-creation image manipulation
> tool and is not used during rootfs generation or WIC image creation.
> It is intended solely for modifying an existing WIC image without
> mounting it.

Which can be done by people in production, so I agree with Paul: this should be a fatal error, not a warning.

Ross