Re: [PATCH RESEND] grub-install: force journal draining to ensure data integrity

[Michael Chang]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 07:41:03AM +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> Le 21/01/2025 à 07:25, Michael Chang via Grub-devel a écrit :
> > In XFS, the system would end up in unbootable state if an abrupt power
> > off after grub-install is occuring. It can be easily reproduced with.
> > 
> >    grub-install /dev/vda; reboot -f
> > 
> > The grub error would show many different kinds of corruption in
> > filesystem and the problem boils down to incompleted journal transaction
> > which would leave pending writes behind in the on-disk journal. It is
> > therefore necessary to recover the system via re-mounting the filesystem
> > from linux system that all pending journal log can be replayed.
> 
> Doesn't it also happen after the update of any files GRUB reads, such as
> grub.cfg, kernel images or initrds ?

Yes, but the kernel and initrd updates are handled by accompany dracut
modules, which also incorporate a similar fix to synchronize the
filesystem using fsfreeze. The GRUB fix is inspired by the fix in dracut
initially but focuses on GRUB related files, such as GRUB modules and
grub.cfg to make it complete.

Thanks,
Michael