touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Jason Gerard DeRose <jason@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

** Summary changed:

- mkfs.ext4 and friends need a safer option for non-interactive use when existing filesystem is present
+ mkfs.ext4 [Utopic+] needs a safer option for non-interactive use when existing filesystem is present

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to e2fsprogs in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1379902

Title:
  mkfs.ext4 [Utopic+] needs a safer option for non-interactive use when
  existing filesystem is present

Status in “e2fsprogs” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  mkfs.ext4 (and friends) behave differently on Utopic vs Trusty when an
  existing filesystem is present on the partition you're formatting.

  On Utopic, mkfs.ext4 will prompt you to confirm overwriting of the
  existing filesystem, which makes it difficult to use non-interactively
  compared to how it worked on Trusty.

  You can work-around this using the -F option, but from the man page,
  this option seems rather too broad in terms of the "dangerous"
  behaviors it allows:

  """
  -F     Force mke2fs to create a filesystem, even if the specified device is not a partition on a block special device, or if other parameters do not make sense. In order to force mke2fs to create a filesystem even if the filesystem appears to be in use or is mounted (a truly dangerous thing to do), this option must be specified twice.
  """

  To me, it seems mkfs.ext4 (and friends) really need something like the
  `apt-get -y` option: only allow for this specific scenario to be used
  non-interactively, without all the overly permissive possibilities
  triggered by -F.

  This behavior change caused problems for the System76 imaging system.
  I imagine it could likewise cause problems for Ubiquity, assuming it
  doesn't already have a work-around.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
  Package: e2fsprogs 1.42.10-1.1ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-21.28-generic 3.16.4
  Uname: Linux 3.16.0-21-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu5
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Fri Oct 10 12:51:00 2014
  EcryptfsInUse: Yes
  SourcePackage: e2fsprogs
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2014-09-25 (14 days ago)

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/e2fsprogs/+bug/1379902/+subscriptions