Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hi Cyril,

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 18:23 +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Marc Haber  (2026-07-15):
> > when I boot a qemu machine from
> > https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/amd64/daily/netboot/mini.iso, everything
> > is fine. I can proceed until partman comes up (I abort then, partman is what
> > interests me).
> > 
> > When I check out
> > https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer.git, do make
> > reallyclean, make build_netboot and boot from that mini.iso, at the stage
> > where partman is supposed to come up, I get a red screen saying that
> > partitioning disks failed.
> 
> Since you're not mentioning switching branch or anything, I'm assuming
> you're working from the master branch, and building within unstable
> (e.g. a devel-oriented schroot environment).
> 
> Starting from a clean Git checkout (meaning reallyclean is a no-op),
> the build_netboot target gives me a build/dest/netboot/mini.iso that
> lets me start and finish partman successfully.

All I can say is that I ran into this circular dependency issue as well
when building d-i locally with the udebs partman-hfs and hfsprogs-udeb
injected manually and it only went away after I dropped partman-base from
Depends of partman-hfs.

> > The log then says:
> > Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
> > Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring 
> > package partman-base (dep loop?)
> > Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base' failed.
> > 
> > Why does my image behave differently? Any ideas what might be going
> > wrong here?
> 
> Maybe something to do with the build environment we have no information
> about.

I was building inside a freshly generated schroot, so the build environment
was clean in my case. Since I did not change anything but updating the d-i
repository with "git pull", I assume this to be a regression in d-i itself
or at least a requirement to implement some changes to udebs if dropped to
the "localudebs" directory.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer
`. `'   Physicist
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[Cyril Brulebois]

Hi,

Marc Haber  (2026-07-15):
> when I boot a qemu machine from
> https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/amd64/daily/netboot/mini.iso, everything
> is fine. I can proceed until partman comes up (I abort then, partman is what
> interests me).
> 
> When I check out
> https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer.git, do make
> reallyclean, make build_netboot and boot from that mini.iso, at the stage
> where partman is supposed to come up, I get a red screen saying that
> partitioning disks failed.

Since you're not mentioning switching branch or anything, I'm assuming
you're working from the master branch, and building within unstable
(e.g. a devel-oriented schroot environment).

Starting from a clean Git checkout (meaning reallyclean is a no-op),
the build_netboot target gives me a build/dest/netboot/mini.iso that
lets me start and finish partman successfully.

> The log then says:
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring 
> package partman-base (dep loop?)
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base' failed.
> 
> Why does my image behave differently? Any ideas what might be going
> wrong here?

Maybe something to do with the build environment we have no information
about.


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (k...@debian.org)
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[Pascal Hambourg]

On 15/07/2026 at 15:13, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 12:51 +0200, Pascal Hambourg wrote:

On 15/07/2026 at 11:09, Marc Haber wrote:


Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring
package partman-base (dep loop?)
Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base'
failed.


Could it be another unforeseen side effect [1] of my SET_FLAG change
which introduced a loop dependency between partman-base and
partman-partitioning ? But then, why would it affect only your local build ?


Yes, it must have been some change that was introduced later. I don't know
why it affects local builds only, but it assume there were no tests with
local builds prior this change was committed, were there?


I do not know about others, but I have not tested with any local build. 
I only may have tested with the mini.iso generated by salsa CI.


If circular dependencies in udebs are an issue, then IMO partman-base 
udeb should be split in two: one udeb providing the common resources 
which other partman-* udebs depend on, and one providing the main-menu 
entry which depends on other partman-* udebs.

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[Marc Haber]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 03:12:33PM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 12:22 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 11:22:20AM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> I have had this issue as well when using partman-hfs in a local build and I
> fixed it by dropping partman-base from Depends in debian/control for the
> partman-hfs package. There seems to be an implicit dependency now so that
> the explicit dependency on partman-base is not necessary.

That didn't work for me. For the image to build, I also had to drop
hfs-modules and hfsprogs-udeb from partman-hfs's depends, but in the end
the error persists.


I didn't say you need to patch partman-hfs, but whatever partman-* package
that are shipping locally.


The issue also happens when I build a mini.iso without my locally 
patched partman-base. Which patches do you suggest doing to make it 
build?


Greetings
Marc

--
-
Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany|  lose things."Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[Marc Haber]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 03:13:42PM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 12:51 +0200, Pascal Hambourg wrote:

On 15/07/2026 at 11:09, Marc Haber wrote:
>
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring
> package partman-base (dep loop?)
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base'
> failed.

Could it be another unforeseen side effect [1] of my SET_FLAG change
which introduced a loop dependency between partman-base and
partman-partitioning ? But then, why would it affect only your local build ?


Yes, it must have been some change that was introduced later. I don't know
why it affects local builds only, but it assume there were no tests with
local builds prior this change was committed, were there?


Is it documented how the daily mini.isos that get uploaded to the web 
page get built?


Greetings
Marc

--
-
Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany|  lose things."Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 12:51 +0200, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> On 15/07/2026 at 11:09, Marc Haber wrote:
> > 
> > Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
> > Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring 
> > package partman-base (dep loop?)
> > Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base' 
> > failed.
> 
> Could it be another unforeseen side effect [1] of my SET_FLAG change 
> which introduced a loop dependency between partman-base and 
> partman-partitioning ? But then, why would it affect only your local build ?

Yes, it must have been some change that was introduced later. I don't know
why it affects local builds only, but it assume there were no tests with
local builds prior this change was committed, were there?

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer
`. `'   Physicist
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hi Marc,

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 12:22 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 11:22:20AM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> > I have had this issue as well when using partman-hfs in a local build and I
> > fixed it by dropping partman-base from Depends in debian/control for the
> > partman-hfs package. There seems to be an implicit dependency now so that
> > the explicit dependency on partman-base is not necessary.
> 
> That didn't work for me. For the image to build, I also had to drop 
> hfs-modules and hfsprogs-udeb from partman-hfs's depends, but in the end 
> the error persists.

I didn't say you need to patch partman-hfs, but whatever partman-* package
that are shipping locally. It was just partman-hfs in my case as I always
have to build debian-installer with partman-hfs/hfsprogs-udeb added locally
because Debian doesn't consider Apple's APSL license dfsg-compliant which
is why hfsprogs was moved to non-free at some point.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer
`. `'   Physicist
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[Pascal Hambourg]

On 15/07/2026 at 11:09, Marc Haber wrote:


Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring 
package partman-base (dep loop?)
Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base' 
failed.


Could it be another unforeseen side effect [1] of my SET_FLAG change 
which introduced a loop dependency between partman-base and 
partman-partitioning ? But then, why would it affect only your local build ?


[1] See threads beginning with

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[Marc Haber]

Hi,

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 11:22:20AM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:

I have had this issue as well when using partman-hfs in a local build and I
fixed it by dropping partman-base from Depends in debian/control for the
partman-hfs package. There seems to be an implicit dependency now so that
the explicit dependency on partman-base is not necessary.


That didn't work for me. For the image to build, I also had to drop 
hfs-modules and hfsprogs-udeb from partman-hfs's depends, but in the end 
the error persists.


Greetings
Marc

--
-
Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany|  lose things."Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

Re: locally built netboot image errors out at partman stage

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hi Marc,

On Wed, 2026-07-15 at 11:09 +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> when I boot a qemu machine from 
> https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/amd64/daily/netboot/mini.iso, 
> everything is fine. I can proceed until partman comes up (I abort then, 
> partman is what interests me).
> 
> When I check out 
> https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer.git, do make 
> reallyclean, make build_netboot and boot from that mini.iso, at the 
> stage where partman is supposed to come up, I get a red screen saying 
> that partitioning disks failed.
> 
> The log then says:
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: INFO: Menu item 'partman-base' selected
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Deep recursion configuring 
> package partman-base (dep loop?)
> Jul 15 09:03:01 main-menu[259]: WARNING **: Menu item 'partman-base' failed.
> 
> Why does my image behave differently? Any ideas what might be going 
> wrong here?

I have had this issue as well when using partman-hfs in a local build and I
fixed it by dropping partman-base from Depends in debian/control for the
partman-hfs package. There seems to be an implicit dependency now so that
the explicit dependency on partman-base is not necessary.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer
`. `'   Physicist
  `-GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913