FS#79133 - [mkinitcpio] Regression - PXE/TFTP boots fail after initramfs permission change

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Adam Nielsen (Malvineous) - Tuesday, 18 July 2023, 11:47 GMT
Last edited by Toolybird (Toolybird) - Tuesday, 18 July 2023, 21:18 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Core
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description:

A recent commit (https://github.com/archlinux/mkinitcpio/commit/49c17915d28b371e635688521f127f13447f04c3) caused the permissions on the initramfs images to be marked unreadable by non-root users.

This breaks network booting, as TFTP servers run as non-root for security reasons. This causes the running Arch system to make the initramfs files unreadable by the TFTP server, so on the next reboot, the kernel cannot start as the TFTP server does not have read permission to send the initramfs files over the network.

That commit links a bug explaining the reasons for the change, which are fair enough, however I would like to request an option be added to mkinitcpio.conf to restore the previous behaviour so that network booting Arch can still be done. Otherwise every time an Arch diskless client is upgraded it will fail to boot unless you remember to set the permissions back to 644 before rebooting.

Additional info:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=286553
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Diskless_system
This task depends upon

Closed by  Toolybird (Toolybird)
Tuesday, 18 July 2023, 21:18 GMT
Reason for closing:  Upstream
Additional comments about closing:  See comments
Comment by Toolybird (Toolybird) - Tuesday, 18 July 2023, 21:18 GMT
mkinitcpio now lives "upstream" in the Arch GitLab instance [1] and all mkinitcpio issues *must* be filed there. Please resubmit your issue there. Thanks :)

[1] https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/mkinitcpio/mkinitcpio

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