| 22 May 2023 |
 Arian | /Etc gets populated in boot | 16:30:46 |
 @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | Arian: from make-disk-image.nix:
The Nix-store only image only need to run LKL tools to produce an image and will never spawn a virtual machine, whereas full images will always require a virtual machine, b
ut also use LKL.
| 16:31:13 |
| Arian | What else is there to populate except for some directories? | 16:31:17 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | so we already don't need a vm if we're just making a nix store image | 16:31:27 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | * Arian: from make-disk-image.nix:
The Nix-store only image only need to run LKL tools to produce an image and will never spawn a virtual machine, whereas full images will always require a virtual machine, but also use LKL.
| 16:31:40 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | Arian: A big part of what the VM is used for is useBootLoader | 16:32:30 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | because you actually have to do a boot loader install process | 16:32:40 |
| Arian | For EFI that's just files on the ESP | 16:33:01 |
 @nikstur:matrix.org | I have built disk images like that, but it might be hard to make all the installer tools behave | 16:33:42 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | And then there are fun things like useSecureBoot where sd-boot populates efi-vars | 16:34:09 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | * And then there are fun things like useSecureBoot where bootctl populates efi-vars | 16:34:28 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | yea EFI vars are actually important | 16:34:37 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | you can't just make an esp tree | 16:34:46 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | Although in principle they can be manipulated outside a VM. But I doubt bootctl can | 16:35:06 |
| Arian | EFI vars have nothing to do with the disk image | 16:35:36 |
| Arian | They're stored on EEPROM | 16:35:42 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | you mean nvram? | 16:35:53 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | and still | 16:35:58 |
| Arian | Yes sorry | 16:35:58 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | In reply to @elvishjerricco:matrix.org
you can't just make an esp tree You can just put a boot loader in $esp/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI and then you have a working disk image | 16:35:59 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | you need to produce both the esp and the ovmf variable file with the variables set | 16:36:57 |
| Arian | Efivars only need to be modified on non-compliant broken UEFI implementations. And that has to happen at installation time not at image building time | 16:36:59 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | if you want to test efi variables | 16:37:02 |
| Arian | Ah true | 16:37:11 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | In reply to @nikstur:matrix.org
You can just put a boot loader in $esp/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI and then you have a working disk image yes but this is kind of being a bad EFI citizen. | 16:38:16 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | In reply to @elvishjerricco:matrix.org
yes but this is kind of being a bad EFI citizen. True but should be irrelevant for our tests | 16:38:36 |
| @elvishjerricco:matrix.org | you should really have your own os directory in the ESP and create a boot entry efi variable for the firmware to see | 16:38:37 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | The only way the efivars are currently used in make-disk-img is for installing the bootloader and I think it doesn't matter that much besides if you want to tests the installation of the bootloader itself. If you want to test efivars for any other reason it might be fine to just mount a writable copy that was not manipulated when the disk was created | 16:41:19 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | mount as in "give qemu the paramter" | 16:41:51 |
| @nikstur:matrix.org | * mount as in "give qemu the parameter" | 16:41:56 |
