[FVT] An obsolete util-linux package is installed for Ubuntu 14.04.3 on ppc64el diskless node.

[neo954]

The osimage definition looked like the following. Ubuntu 14.04.3 was used on ppc64el architechture.

root@c910f03c04k07:~# lsdef -t osimage compute_1533a
Object name: compute_1533a
    exlist=/opt/xcat/share/xcat/netboot/ubuntu/compute.exlist
    imagetype=linux
    kernelver=3.19.0-25-generic
    osarch=ppc64el
    osname=Linux
    osvers=ubuntu14.04.3
    otherpkgdir=/install/post/otherpkgs/ubuntu14.04.3/ppc64el
    permission=755
    pkgdir=/install/ubuntu14.04.3/ppc64el
    pkglist=/opt/xcat/share/xcat/netboot/ubuntu/compute.ubuntu14.04.ppc64el.pkglist
    profile=compute
    provmethod=netboot
    rootimgdir=/install/netboot/ubuntu14.04.3/ppc64el/compute_1533a

After the genimage was running, I found out package util-linux installed in the osimage was an old versoin came from Ubuntu remote mirror. But a newer version was shipped in the iso file. Please check the attachment for all the detail genimage output.

genimage_compute_1533a.out.txt

By look into this problem, as you can see from the following outputs, it is due to the dependency changing of the newer util-linux package.

root@c910f03c04k07:~# chroot /install/netboot/ubuntu14.04.3/ppc64el/compute_1533a/rootimg apt-cache policy util-linux
util-linux:
  Installed: 2.20.1-5.1ubuntu20
  Candidate: 2.20.1-5.1ubuntu20.6
  Version table:
     2.20.1-5.1ubuntu20.6 0
        500 http://10.3.4.7/install/ubuntu14.04.3/ppc64el/ trusty/main ppc64el Packages
 *** 2.20.1-5.1ubuntu20 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
root@c910f03c04k07:~# chroot /install/netboot/ubuntu14.04.3/ppc64el/compute_1533a/rootimg apt-get install util-linux
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  util-linux-locales dosfstools
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  mac-fdisk pmac-fdisk ubuntu-minimal
The following packages will be upgraded:
  util-linux
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 462 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2516 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.

[daniceexi]

xCAT geneimage uses the 'apt-get upgrade' to update the rootimage, but utils-linux was not upgraded since the utils-linux changed the dependency in the new repo.
After discussion we thought this is an issue of Ubuntu repo, if user does need this new package, you can use the following command to update the package.

    chroot <rootimage path> apt-get dist-upgrade 

[daniceexi]

An known issue has been added in the 2.11 release notes: https://github.com/xcat2/xcat-core/wiki/XCAT_2.11_Release_Notes

[neo954]

HPC customers will use Ubuntu 14.04.3. We really should provide good xCAT support against this reversion of Ubuntu distro.

[whowutwut]

@cxhong Could you take a quick investigation look into this since CDL is on vacation?

[whowutwut]

@neo954 , can you document here the steps the admin suppose to run to update Ubuntu if managing without xCAT?

[neo954]

@whowutwut , the normal updating procedure is

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

[whowutwut]

@cxhong do you want to look at this?

[cxhong]

are we agree to add those three updating procedure to ubuntu genimage? from the code, I think we are doing: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

[tingtli]

@cxhong @neo954 @penguhyang Is this bug fixed?

[neo954]

The bug is still there.

[whowutwut]

Is this something we should target for 2.11.2?

[tingtli]

Since xCAT 2.12 focus is ubuntu 14.04.4 and ubuntu 16.04 support. I think we need to fix this in 2.12.

[whowutwut]

@cxhong This one should be pending right? Was included in 2.13.1...

[whowutwut]

@neo954 Can you help verify and close out of OK . thanks

[whowutwut]

@neo954 Please try and verify and close this out so we can close out 2.13.1... we are about to release 2.13.2

[cxhong]

I will close this issue, reopen it if you are seeing this again.