[Bug 1791959] [NEW] remove /boot/initrd.img-*.old-dkms files left behind

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

You have been subscribed to a public bug by Tiago Stürmer Daitx (tdaitx):

[Impact]
If a dkms package is installed which has REMAKE_INITRD or the same setting has be manually configured by a user then when a kernel is removed its possible for an ".old-dkms" file to be left in /boot with no associated kernel.

bug 1515513 dealt with removing initrd.img-<version>.old-dkms files
using the kernel's prerm hook, but that is only executed for the kernel
version being removed: any other old-dkms file generated prior to that
would not be removed by the hook, taking space in the /boot directory.

Note: Filling up the /boot partition causes updates to fail.

[Test Case]
As the fix for bug 1515513 is available on Xenial it is no longer possible to reproduce this by simply installing and updating kernels (dkms 2.2.0.3-2ubuntu11.3 would be required for that). In order to replicate it an old dkms file will be created by hand.

This assumes a new Xenial schroot.

1) create a file to work as a placeholder for the initrd.img old dkms file
sudo touch /boot/initrd.img-4.0.0-0-generic.old-dkms

2) install 3 old kernels, r8168-dkms, and the current initramfs-tools
sudo apt-get install -y linux-image-4.4.0-21-generic linux-image-4.4.0-22-generic linux-image-4.4.0-24-generic r8168-dkms initramfs-tools=0.122ubuntu8.12

3) install the headers for the old kernels (forces dkms to run)
sudo apt-get install -y linux-headers-4.4.0-21-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-22-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-24-generic

4) verify that there are 4 old-dkms, the manually created and one for each installed kernel
ls /boot/*.old-dkms

5) install the initramfs-tools that contains this fix
sudo apt-get install -y initramfs-tools

6) verify that the manually created old-dkms file was removed and that there are only 3 files now, one for each installed kernel
ls /boot/*.old-dkms

7) autoremove the older kernel
sudo apt-get autoremove -y

8) verify that there are now only 2 old-dkms, one for each installed kernel
ls /boot/*.old-dkms

[Regression Potential]
Somebody out there might expect the .old-dkms file to be kept, but that seems like an odd expectation.

One notices *.old-dkms files being left behind still sitting on the disk
after purging the related kernel. This can cause /boot to become full,
and when it gets really bad, even sudo apt-get autoremove won't fix the
problem - only deleting the old-dkms files manually solves the problem.

** Affects: dkms (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: patch xenial
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remove /boot/initrd.img-*.old-dkms files left behind
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1791959
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