Attended sysupgrade - allow user to select rootfs size in some way

Hello,

I notice in the 22.03.4 release notes, that we now have:

[38ccc47] imagebuilder: allow to specific ROOTFS_PARTSIZE

Is it at all possible to make this an option within Attended sysupgrade, that a user can adjust?

My use case is using the x86 build of OpenWRT on PC Engines APU2D4. Every time I upgrade, I then have to connect my USB to serial port cable to my router, connect with screen or putty, boot into a Live Linux distribution from USB flash drive, install parted, resize the rootfs partition to use all of the SSD, and then extend the filesystem onto that now larger partition.

It would be nice to reduce the number of steps, work, and time in a upgrade.

Thank you for considering this.

3 Likes

Not if you'd have two parallel installs, install new release from old, resize, and boot into new.
Alternate between them on every new release.

Once you have the partitions in place, there are just three commands + the change in grub (which would be only default boot option, if you use static kernel names, and partitions as root= parameter in grub, instead of PARTUUID).

So make it an advance opt in feature? Only use this if you know exactly what you are doing?

Or, only available for x86 image builds?

Now that this function is available in imagebuilder, and you are telling me this change is not possible because of routers with two parallel installs...

Is your intention of this feature not being made available in Attended sysupgrade to protect users from either bricking their device, or no longer having parallel installs on the flash?

If so, what is to stop a user from using this feature in imagebuilder on a device that has two parallel installs? Does this brick the device, or just make it that it only has one install of OpenWRT on it?

My point being, if any user that knows about this feature can access it through imagebuilder. Then they can potentially screw up their flash layout, parallel installs, or brick the device depending on what happens in this circumstance.

You can't completely protect the user from making potentially fatal mistakes in general, or once a feature like this is made available. Educate and inform them of the dangers of using it. Make it opt in, and maybe not super obvious as an option, or difficult to enable without reading the warning?

What do you think about this?