Package: rootskel Version: 1.131 Severity: important I like to create Xen domU virtual machines using debian-installer, with preseeding for a no-questions-asked experience. This works well with stretch, but when I try to use buster images (from debian/dists/buster/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/xen/ in the public repository) I find that I am being asked some questions (by localechooser) despite the preseeding. Moreover, the exact questions asked vary from run to run even if I make no changes to my setup. Occasionally I even get netcfg failures.
>From the installer log I see that two instances of debian-installer are being run in parallel, one for each of the consoles hvc0 and tty0: Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Looking at console hvc0 from /proc/consoles Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding hvc0 to consoles list Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: hvc0 is preferred Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Looking at console tty0 from /proc/consoles Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding tty0 to consoles list Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding inittab entry for hvc0 Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Adding inittab entry for tty0 Sep 10 10:02:13 reopen-console: Restarting init to start d-i on the consoles we found Sep 10 10:02:13 init: reloading /etc/inittab Sep 10 10:02:13 init: starting pid 208, tty '/dev/tty4': '/usr/bin/tail -f /var/log/syslog' Sep 10 10:02:13 init: starting pid 209, tty '/dev/hvc0': '/sbin/debian-installer' Sep 10 10:02:13 init: starting pid 210, tty '/dev/tty0': '/sbin/debian-installer' This seems to be new behaviour since stretch, introduced in version 1.128 of package rootskel. I suspect that the two debian-installer instances are racing each other. To confirm this, I unpacked initrd.gz, made a simple change to sbin/reopen-console (adding inittab entries only for cons in $preferred instead of for cons in $consoles), repacked, and run an installation again with much better results (no more questions from localechooser). I do appreciate that for interactive d-i use it's nice to have it show up on all consoles; but not at the expense of breaking fully automated installation.
