Bug 1527700

Summary:	anaconda text mode fails to boot with systemd 236
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Adam Williamson <awilliam>
Component:	systemd	Assignee:	Frédéric Lepied <flepied>
Status:	CLOSED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	urgent	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	rawhide	CC:	flepied, lnykryn, msekleta, robatino, ssahani, s, systemd-maint, zbyszek
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Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
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Last Closed:	2017-12-20 18:10:10 UTC	Type:	Bug
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Bug Blocks:	1469204

Description Adam Williamson 2017-12-20 00:03:18 UTC

Since systemd-236-1.fc28 landed in Rawhide, anaconda text mode does not work properly. If you boot an installer image with the 'inst.text' parameter which should cause the text installer to run, the boot process appears to hang part way through and you're just left looking at boot messages, like this:

https://openqa.fedoraproject.org/tests/180817#step/_boot_to_anaconda/6

From the logs, it appears systemd is choking on one of the custom services anaconda uses:

20:38:42,185 ERR systemd:/lib/systemd/system/anaconda-tmux@.service:13: Failed to resolve unit specifiers on #033%G: Invalid slot
20:38:42,185 ERR systemd:/usr/lib/systemd/system/anaconda-tmux@.service:13: Failed to resolve unit specifiers on #033%G: Invalid slot
20:38:42,185 NOTICE systemd:anaconda-tmux: Unit configuration has fatal error, unit will not be started.
20:38:42,185 WARNING systemd:anaconda-tmux: Cannot add dependency job, ignoring: Unit anaconda-tmux is not loaded properly: Exec format error.

The problem appears to be this line in anaconda-tmux@.service:

ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/echo -e \033%G

The '\033%G' portion is intended for echo to consume, but systemd appears to be trying to parse it for some reason, and complaining.

Proposing as a Beta blocker per Basic criterion "When using a dedicated installer image, the installer must be able to complete an installation using the text, graphical and VNC installation interfaces" - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Basic_Release_Criteria#Installation_interfaces

Comment 1 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2017-12-20 18:04:37 UTC

This is already fixed in https://github.com/rhinstaller/anaconda/commit/ab29bdff2e041ec4f354c3334d8aa15ea8366a17.

Apologies. I added code to tighten checking for unknown escapes in systemd. In hindsight it would have been better to first turn on some warning mode, and only after a release or two make it fatal.

It seems that this line was the only instance of unescaped % in the service files in Fedora. I think it's good enough if the new anaconda is released which will solve this issue. It'd also be possible to add make this non-fatal in systemd, but I don't think it's necessary at this point.

Comment 2 Adam Williamson 2017-12-20 18:10:10 UTC

Note for the record: that commit was made *after* I filed the bug :)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1526861 ***