GNU bug report logs - #18289
libparted ped_disk_clobber() overwrites firmware on some arm systems

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From: Karsten Merker <merker <at> debian.org>
To: "Brian C. Lane" <bcl <at> redhat.com>, 18289 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, 751704 <at> bugs.debian.org
Cc: Colin Watson <cjwatson <at> debian.org>, Ian Campbell <ijc <at> hellion.org.uk>, Jim Meyering <meyering <at> debian.org>, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense <at> csclub.uwaterloo.ca>, Karsten Merker <merker <at> debian.org>, parted-devel <parted-devel <at> lists.alioth.debian.org>, Otavio Salvador <otavio <at> debian.org>
Subject: bug#18289: libparted ped_disk_clobber() overwrites firmware on some arm systems
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:06:21 +0200

On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 10:07:59PM +0200, Karsten Merker wrote:

> You are fully right that normally a bootloader should be
> installed after partitioning.  This works well for the case of a
> bootloader that uses universally available BIOS functions and is
> not hardware-specific, such as is the case on PCs.  In the case
> of u-boot on the other hand, in PC-lingo we would have to provide
> the installer with the ability to flash the BIOS for every PC
> model on the market as part of the operating system installation,
> which is not feasible.  We might be able to do that for a small
> selection of devices, but not for all of them --> we need to keep
> the u-boot image that is on the device even when creating a new
> disklabel, but we are unsure what is the best way to handle this.
> 
> The approach in https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=751704#60
> (setting PedDisk.needs_clobber to 0 before calling ped_disk_commit
> for specific devices) works in practice, but the question was
> whether it is ok for the calling application to fiddle around with
> the needs_clobber flag, or whether we should take some other
> approach.

Hello Brian,

may I ping you again regarding the last paragraph? The question
whether this approach is ok from a libparted point of view is
still open and I would very much apprechiate your feedback on it.

Kind regards,
Karsten
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