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

Paul Barker
2025-12-18T11:34:44Z

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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.

On the kirkstone branch we have e2fsprogs 1.46.5, does the same debugfs
issue apply there or has it been patched?

Best regards,

--
Paul Barker

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