[Bug 2024398] Re: wipefs not working as documented

[Kevin O'Gorman]

Well, color me baffled.  I was all set to try testing before and after
applying the update.  But now I cannot make the problem happen.  I'll
apply the updates anyway.  Feel free to do what makes sense with this
bug report -- mark worksforme, mark as duplicate, whatever.

All I can think of is that the original error depended on a timestamp or
something similar.  But I do not know that.

Sorry to "bug" you.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2024398

Title:
  wipefs not working as documented

Status in util-linux package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  Working on a new app to do full-disk backup and recovery, I'm having
  trouble with clearing existing partitions on a target drive.  The man
  page for wipefs says that wipefs -a <drive> should wipe all partitions
  on the drive, but I have a situation where it has a strange result:
  lsblk reports one partition still remains.

  Steps to reproduce:
    - zero the first and last megabytes on the target drive
    - partition the drive with 'sfdisk /dev/drive <sf-dump
      where <sfdump> is the name of the file attached to this report
    - wipefs -a <drive>
    - lsblk

  What I see at this point is a drive with one partition --  oddly
  1,3,4,5 and 6 have disappeared, but partition 2 remains.  This
  persists even after doing 'partprobe'.

  The problem seems to be that something in the label looks like an
  atari disk label(!!!), and 'wipefs -a' is not clearing it.

  I can get around the problem by using the --force parameter so:
  'wipefs -f -a', and it reports an "atari" signature that was hiding in
  my DOS MBR somehow.  Since I had zeroed the entire disk label area,
  this has to be a kind of mirage created by a specific configuration of
  bits.

  This behavior is a sneaky trap.  It took me a very long time to
  stumble upon the cause and the fix I've just described.   It seems
  best to me if wipefs can detect this issue and clear any odd artifacts
  like this.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
  Package: util-linux 2.34-0.1ubuntu9.3
  Uname: Linux 5.18.10-76051810-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.24
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
  Date: Mon Jun 19 11:19:03 2023
  SourcePackage: util-linux
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2022-05-13 (402 days ago)
  modified.conffile..etc.default.apport:
   # set this to 0 to disable apport, or to 1 to enable it
   # you can temporarily override this with
   # sudo service apport start force_start=1
   enabled=0
  mtime.conffile..etc.default.apport: 2017-05-02T14:12:29.908000

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