[Bug 1893675] Re: Autopkgtest failure on latest version of initramfs-tools - lack of partprobe

[Balint Reczey]

** Tags added: update-excuse

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Title:
  Autopkgtest failure on latest version of initramfs-tools - lack of
  partprobe

Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in initramfs-tools source package in Focal:
  In Progress
Status in initramfs-tools source package in Groovy:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  * Currently the initramfs-tools autopkgtest fails for at least AMD64, with the following signature:
  "mount: /tmp/autopkgtest.K1r92h/build.zdS/src/mnt: special device /dev/loop0p1 does not exist."

  * The reason for that is the test trying immediately to use that
  partition on the loop device, but kernel may not have a partition re-
  read ioctl issued, so the test may fail as observing a nonexistent
  partition.

  * The fix proposed here is just to manually run "partprobe" before
  using the new to-be-discovered loop partition in the net autopkgtest.

  [Test Case]
  * Run the autopkgtest suite in the initramfs-tools package and observe the failure aforementioned.

  [Regression Potential]
  * Extremely low potential, we are just introducing a partition re-read/probe operation during autopkgtest phase, in order to keep the partition table of loop devices consistent before the test uses it.
  * The only potential issue I see with that is if for some reason we don't have partprobe in the autopkgtest environment, but that shouldn't happen since parted package is on ubuntu-standard.

  * Notice that this test is not executed in Debian CI given that CI has
  no support for VMs, and this test requires that. [See the
  Rectification below]

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