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• Launchpad Entry: grub-configuration-improvements

• Packages affected: ucf, grub

Summary

/boot/grub/menu.lst is the single file where all boot-time options are configured for installed i386 and amd64 systems. Ubuntu must support package-initiated updates (for installation of new kernel packages) without silently discarding user-initiated config changes.

Release Note

User-modified grub menu.lst files will trigger conflict-resolution dialog on kernel upgrade: previously, if a user edited the bootloader configuration in /boot/grub/menu.lst directly, these changes might be silently lost when a new kernel was installed. The new version of the grub package detects when such changes have been made, and will ask users to resolve this conflict manually when a kernel package is installed.

Rationale

/boot/grub/menu.lst is the canonical upstream location where changes are made to the configuration for the grub bootloader. Third-party documentation and how-tos will document that users should edit this file in order to make changes to their boot configuration. However, the current behavior of update-grub is to replace the kernel boot stanzas with stanzas auto-generated from magic comments stored at the top of this file. This will overwrite configuration changes made by the user, and may result in a non-working bootloader configuration or a non-working kernel configuration.

This is reported as [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub/+bug/103297 bug #103297] against grub.

Use Cases

1. Trang knows nothing about kernels or bootloaders, and has never touched /boot/grub/menu.lst. A newer kernel becomes available; it should be installed on her system automatically and become the default.
2. Lawrence is new to Ubuntu, but has used grub before on other systems. He edits /boot/grub/menu.lst by hand to change the boot options for his kernel, and a kernel update later becomes available. His changes to the boot options should not be overwritten silently.

3. Barb is an experienced Ubuntu user who has read the comments in the Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst and used the kopt= setting to configure her boot options. She expects that this setting will continue to be applied for newly-installed kernel packages.

Assumptions

• grub2 will not be a viable solution for 8.04 LTS.

Design

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Implementation

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UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Include:

• data migration, if any
• redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
• how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during CD testing, and to show off after release.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Outstanding Issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

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