FS#74125 - Upgrade one kernel at a time

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by med medin (medmedin) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 12:59 GMT
Last edited by Toolybird (Toolybird) - Saturday, 03 June 2023, 01:16 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Security
Status Closed
Assigned To Andreas Radke (AndyRTR)
Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig)
Levente Polyak (anthraxx)
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

I left my desktop upgrading alone and a cut in electricity occurred while I was absent, then after powering on my machine I tried booting both 5.4 and 5.15 kernels but they both failed with error "you need to load the kernel first", only putting ISO on USB and booting live session then using chroot fixed the problem, it seems like pacman removes both kernels at the same time when it starts upgrading, so any cut in electricity or power failure could break the whole system, wouldn't be safer to upgrade only one kernel at a time so that when the first kernel finishes upgrading then the second one could start, like this even if a kernel upgrade is interrupted then the other one remains untouched and can be used as an entry to boot system and fix it.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Toolybird (Toolybird)
Saturday, 03 June 2023, 01:16 GMT
Reason for closing:  Not a bug
Additional comments about closing:  Not an Arch packaging bug. See comments. Arch is powerful, but it cannot control the weather :)
Comment by Andreas Radke (AndyRTR) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 16:35 GMT
We don't provide any 5.4 kernel in our repos. What initcpio do you use. Do you use some custom pacman hooks?
Comment by Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 16:49 GMT
There's no sane way to do this automatically. You should have to hold back one of the kernels.
Comment by med medin (medmedin) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 17:41 GMT
@AndyRTR I installed it from linux-lts54 package and 5.4 is supported until Dec 2025, I didn't change any initcpio or pacman config files.
Comment by med medin (medmedin) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 17:47 GMT
@heftig So any machine with Arch is condemned to break if any hardware failure or electricity cut occurs in the middle of any upgrade.
Comment by Doug Newgard (Scimmia) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 17:54 GMT
That machine is likely broken, regardless of the kernel updating process. The only way to avoid that would be atomic updates
Comment by med medin (medmedin) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 18:02 GMT
@Scimmia Is there any hack or an option in pacman to force it automatically to select only one kernel during upgrade process, and at the end start upgrading the kept kernel. I'm living in a place where electricity cuts always happen especially when it's raining or windy.
Comment by Andreas Radke (AndyRTR) - Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 20:55 GMT
Maybe get some uninterruptable power supply for your hardware. This would also prevent filesystem corruption.

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