RFC: baseline requirements for Ubuntu rootfs: xattrs and fscaps

[Robie Basak]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2018 at 05:58:56PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> This will require bugfixes in various places, but ideally on a one-time
> basis only.  The primary areas of concern are:

[...]

>  - Users who are unpacking root tarballs need to take care to pass
>    --xattrs-include=* to tar.

I think it's worth pointing out that users unpacking root tarballs to
filesystems that don't support xattrs will be broken. I'm not sure how
widespread this is, but I'm thinking of the use of cloud images and the
Ubuntu Base image. In the interests of moving forward, perhaps it makes
sense to make this breaking change in Ubuntu.

Would it be an idea to make it such that booting an Ubuntu system on a
filesystem that doesn't support xattrs deliberately fails early, to
avoid users being hit with subtle bugs later? The error could include
instructions on disabling the check for users who want to proceed
anyway.
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