[systemd-devel] Splitting sd-boot from systemd/bootctl for enabling sd-boot in Fedora

[Luca Boccassi]

On Wed, 2022-04-27 at 11:48 -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 11:46 AM Luca Boccassi <bluca at debian.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, 2022-04-27 at 11:26 -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 11:13 AM Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek
> > > <zbyszek at in.waw.pl> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 09:31:10AM -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 7:41 AM Lennart Poettering
> > > > > > > Realistically, I think if we want to make movement on making
> > > > > > > systemd-boot fully supported in Fedora, the systemd-boot boot manager
> > > > > > > code itself should be split out into its own repository with its own
> > > > > > > release cadence, while bootctl(1) and related infrastructure remains
> > > > > > > in the systemd source tree and evolves to be able to manage arbitrary
> > > > > > > BLS-conformant boot managers.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Why though? I don't follow? as long as we provide you with a tarball
> > > > > > you can build your stuff from it shouldn't really matter if there's
> > > > > > more stuff in it you are not immediately interested in.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I mean, if you like I could do a "cp systemd-251.tar.gz
> > > > > > systemd-boot-251.tar.gz" for you if you want two tarballs instead of
> > > > > > one, but I don't see the point?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > As I illustrated in another email[5], decoupling the lifecycle of the
> > > > > EFI boot manager code from the rest of systemd would be ideal to not
> > > > > make the constraints around building sd-boot with secure boot support
> > > > > painful.
> > > > > 
> > > > > [5]: https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2022-April/047801.html
> > > > 
> > > > Apart from the constraint who can build official packages, is there
> > > > anything else? If it's just that, that doesn't seem onerous.
> > > 
> > > It also means Fedora CI, pull requests from contributors, and
> > > releng auto-rebuilds will no longer work. Maintainers basically
> > > sign-on to do all of those things manually and have to be responsive
> > > for doing it. You will get FTBFS tickets every cycle because of it,
> > > for example.
> > > 
> > > Koji doesn't conceptually know the difference because there is no
> > > namespacing for builders, only who is approved to build.
> > > 
> > > (In contrast, in the Open Build Service like what Luca Boccassi was
> > > talking about, packagers don't control the builds at all, so OBS only
> > > has to trust itself to sign it, so everything works properly.)
> > 
> > You could simply have a separate source RPM, no? That should be pretty
> > simple, and limit the impact on team maintenance of the main source
> > package?
> > 
> 
> Yep. I was hoping we could have the upstream sources split too, but if
> we can't, then that's definitely the preferred way to go.

With this PR https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/23204 you'll be
able to do this, which takes a fraction of a second to complete, as
opposed to the full build:

$ ninja src/boot/efi/linuxx64.efi.stub
[21/21] Generating src/boot/efi/linuxx64.efi.stub with a custom command
$ ninja src/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi
[10/10] Generating src/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi with a custom
command
$ DESTDIR=/tmp/foo meson install --tags sd-boot,sd-stub --no-rebuild
Installing src/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi to
/tmp/foo/usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi
Installing src/boot/efi/linuxx64.elf.stub to
/tmp/foo/usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi
Installing src/boot/efi/linuxx64.efi.stub to
/tmp/foo/usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi

It should make it easier and more manageable I hope?

> > (OBS is awesome :-) )
> > 
> 
> Indeed. I run an OBS instance for my workplace, and I've contributed
> to OBS over the years. It has its warts, but I think it got more
> right than wrong in the philosophy of a build system.

Same at $previous_job, and miss it dearly at $current_job. The way
they've integrated signing EFI binaries for packages is quite nice too
- I contributed some bits and pieces to enable EFI binary signing for
Debian builds too, as it was supported only for RPM before, PoC with
shim + grub + kernel = secure bootable Debian image:
https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/home:bluca:debian_secure_boot

-- 
Kind regards,
Luca Boccassi
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