potential kernel arguments options support for all installers (HMS-8999) by mvo5 · Pull Request #1786 · osbuild/image-builder

mvo5 · 2025-08-25T10:02:07Z

When debugging a test failure of centos9 iso install I want to use the cool new feature by Simon to add kernel arguments to the installer (c.f. https://github.com/osbuild/images/pull/1727/files) test in bib via a blueprint kernel append.

I noticed then that its currently implemented for a subset of our installers, so I created this quick draft to see what it would take and it seems straightforward. Is there a reason not to support the kargs for the missing installers? If not I'm happy to flesh this one out more, it needs tests (obviously) but I did not want to write them before there is agreement that is what we want.

[edit/reminder: the AanacondaContainerInstaller needs a coresponding change in bib to fully work]

Note that while this enables kernel.append in the lower levels there is a blueprint options check that will prevent this for e.g. edge-installer so if we want to support this for real we will need to enable it in the checkOptions() for blueprints code (which is currently not fine-grained enough to allow setting Kernel.append only but not kernel.name and we will need #1216 first I think.

supakeen · 2025-08-26T11:05:51Z

@mvo5 Why is this draft?

mvo5 · 2025-08-26T13:28:16Z

@mvo5 Why is this draft?

Mostly because I wanted to add a test and some tiny cleanups/research. But happy to un-draft. We will need consensus if this is what we want though (I think we do but idk about the others).

mvo5 · 2025-08-27T07:17:56Z

+	// the kernel options from the imageConfig but we only set
+	// those in the rawImage.OSTreeDeploymentCustomizations and
+	// not in the bootTreePipeline. Its unclear if we should change
+	// this or not. Its inconsistent with the other installers but


This one is actually (even more) interesting - we allow customizations.kernel for the iot-simplified-installer image type but afaict setting it has no effect(?)

Yep, that's funky. Maybe this is from the time that we wanted blueprints to be able to apply to multiple image types even though silently discarding stuff is bad (in my opinion).

We can probably drop this from the allowed customizations as it has no effect?

The iot/edge-simplified-installer types create a raw image from an ostree commit and then put that on an ISO with the coreos installer.

The kernel arguments get applied to the raw image:
https://github.com/osbuild/images/blob/0a3a48f4bc8ec382d7e31f69535488cbb1e27fc2/pkg/distro/generic/images.go#L842
https://github.com/osbuild/images/blob/0a3a48f4bc8ec382d7e31f69535488cbb1e27fc2/pkg/distro/generic/images.go#L397-L399
https://github.com/osbuild/images/blob/0a3a48f4bc8ec382d7e31f69535488cbb1e27fc2/pkg/manifest/ostree_deployment.go#L264-L272

I'm a Muppet (again) - I was confused by gen-manifests-diff not showing anything when doing #1880 but its just a silly bug in gen-manifests-diff (I opened #1881 to address that)

Sorry for this blunder - I think the comment itself is (largely) correct though or do you want me to clarify further and/or fix this (could be a followup) it would change existing manifest checksums iirc.

supakeen

Thank you, this is useful for at least all Anaconda installers as Anaconda switches behavior based on the kernel arguments present.

In particular this resolves the linked bug once we release the network installer.

mvo5 · 2025-08-27T14:33:07Z

Sorry, had to force push because of conflicts

mvo5 · 2025-08-28T06:28:28Z

Sorry, conflicts again, force pushed again, this time from in checksum manifests (so trivial)

This commit re-adds the `kernel.append` customization to the {minimal,image}-installer and also add it to the test manifests. This option was supported via osbuild#1786 but when adding the blueprint options checking via the YAML it seems this support got lost.

achilleas-k · 2025-09-18T09:50:17Z

The option needs to be added to the image types that support it now. Let's also include it in one of the test/configs/ for installers.

AFAICT we no longer allow kernel.append for any of our installers (via the new supported_options mechanism), even #1727 seems to be no longer working. I'm happy to add it back but its orthogonal to this PR (this PR just enables the ability to add it and unifies the backend a bit). Should I open a new one that re-enables kernel.append for {minimal,image}-installer that also adds the config?

[edit: I opened https://github.com//pull/1870]

Sorry, I got a bit confused and thought this PR was adding support for specifying kernel args in the blueprint for installer types.

This commit re-adds the `kernel.append` customization to the {minimal,image}-installer and also add it to the test manifests. This option was supported via osbuild#1786 but when adding the blueprint options checking via the YAML it seems this support got lost.

This commit re-adds the `kernel.append` customization to the {minimal,image}-installer and also add it to the test manifests. This option was supported via #1786 but when adding the blueprint options checking via the YAML it seems this support got lost.

mvo5 · 2025-09-22T11:31:29Z

[..]

[edit: I opened https://github.com//pull/1870]

Sorry, I got a bit confused and thought this PR was adding support for specifying kernel args in the blueprint for installer types.

No worries, I rebased now that #1870 is merged and this should be ready again (also fixed the typo that Thozza pointed out).

mvo5 · 2025-10-06T07:26:32Z

Had to force push because GH claimed conflicts (which git resolved without any changes from my side)

Support for kernel options in the iso got added to the tar installer in osbuild#1727. For consistency this commit also enables it for the other installers via the pre-existing `AdditionalKernelOpts` that is part of the `manifest.InstallerCustomizations`. A helper to read the kernel options from the customizations and default image type(s) is extracted as well.

We can drop the (now) special handling of kernel args via the OSCustomizations in the tar installer. With the previous commit we use the manifest.InstallerCustomizations.AdditionalKernelOpts to handle the kernel arguments which is enough (this is also validated by the fact that the existing TestTarInstallerKernelOpts does not need to change).

Rename the manifest.InstallerCustomizations.AdditionalKernelOpts to KernelOptionsAppend to be similar to the existing OSCustomizations that also have the same job. This makes it easier to reason that both options do the same, one for the os pipeline, one for the installer pipeline(s).

This adds a missing unit test for the kernel options extraction via the installerCustomizations.

There are some stray newlines that visually distract from the error handling. This commit removes them.

This commit makes the code similar to the other installers when handling the kernelOpts options. Ideally we would have one shared helper but one step at a time.

The fedora `iot-installer` image sets default image type kernel options that were previously not honored by the image type. With the unification of the installer kernel options it is no honored which leads to a manifest diff. It is not clear if we want these kernel options or not but this commit is conservative and keeps the old behavior by just unsetting the kernel options in the "iot-installer" image options.

The OSTreeSimplifiedInstaller is not an anaconda installer but it still uses some of the anaconda structs. So lets move it to use the same installer customizations. Note that we cannot use the InstallerCustomizations.KernelAppend with it as it will lead to a diff in the rhel-9.x edge-simplified-installer image: ```yaml --- /tmp/tmp07t_j3mj/ref/rhel_9.7-x86_64-edge_simplified_installer-edge_ostree_pull_device.json 2025-08-26 15:10:18.721496181 +0200 +++ /tmp/tmp07t_j3mj/new/rhel_9.7-x86_64-edge_simplified_installer-edge_ostree_pull_device.json 2025-08-26 15:10:21.201572008 +0200 @@ -1100,7 +1100,10 @@ "coreos.inst.isoroot=RHEL-9-7-0-BaseOS-x86_64", "coreos.inst.install_dev=/dev/sda", "coreos.inst.image_file=/run/media/iso/image.raw.xz", - "coreos.inst.insecure" + "coreos.inst.insecure", + "modprobe.blacklist=vc4", + "rw", + "coreos.no_persist_ip" ] }, "isolabel": "RHEL-9-7-0-BaseOS-x86_64", @@ -1259,7 +1262,10 @@ "coreos.inst.isoroot=RHEL-9-7-0-BaseOS-x86_64", "coreos.inst.install_dev=/dev/sda", "coreos.inst.image_file=/run/media/iso/image.raw.xz", - "coreos.inst.insecure" + "coreos.inst.insecure", + "modprobe.blacklist=vc4", + "rw", + "coreos.no_persist_ip" ] } } ``` This is because the edge-simplified-installer for rhel uses the kernel options from the base image type only for the deployed system but does not add it to the ISO kernel commandline. Its unclear if we should unify this or not but this commit errs on the side of caution.

supakeen

Thank you.

mvo5 mentioned this pull request Aug 25, 2025

[RFC] kernel arguments options support for all installers #1776

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mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch 4 times, most recently from ac591b5 to 65a1bcc Compare August 25, 2025 19:07

supakeen changed the title ~~[RFC] kernel arguments options support for all installers~~ [RFC] kernel arguments options support for all installers (HMS-8999) Aug 26, 2025

mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch 3 times, most recently from 195a8b9 to 5a81a0a Compare August 26, 2025 13:26

mvo5 marked this pull request as ready for review August 26, 2025 13:28

mvo5 requested a review from a team as a code owner August 26, 2025 13:28

mvo5 requested review from croissanne, supakeen and thozza August 26, 2025 13:28

mvo5 mentioned this pull request Aug 26, 2025

Generalise blueprint validation for Fedora image types (HMS-6871) #1216

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mvo5 commented Aug 27, 2025

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mvo5 changed the title ~~[RFC] kernel arguments options support for all installers (HMS-8999)~~ [RFC] potential kernel arguments options support for all installers (HMS-8999) Aug 27, 2025

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supakeen mentioned this pull request Aug 27, 2025

distrodefs/fedora: add supported customizations for net installer #1768

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mvo5 dismissed supakeen’s stale review via 88d568b August 27, 2025 14:32

mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from 5a81a0a to 88d568b Compare August 27, 2025 14:32

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mvo5 dismissed supakeen’s stale review via 6709cc6 August 28, 2025 06:28

mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from 88d568b to 6709cc6 Compare August 28, 2025 06:28

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mvo5 dismissed supakeen’s stale review via 8bb1ed2 August 28, 2025 10:43

mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from ab80310 to cceffc7 Compare September 22, 2025 11:05

mvo5 dismissed supakeen’s stale review via 53d3b72 September 22, 2025 11:30

mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from cceffc7 to 53d3b72 Compare September 22, 2025 11:30

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mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from 53d3b72 to b60d339 Compare September 29, 2025 11:33

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mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from b60d339 to 970678d Compare October 6, 2025 07:25

mvo5 added 8 commits October 7, 2025 15:05

distro: add unit test for installerCustomizations() kopts

d7fe38d

This adds a missing unit test for the kernel options extraction via the installerCustomizations.

distro: fix stray newlines in generic/images.go

ec22c9d

There are some stray newlines that visually distract from the error handling. This commit removes them.

image: unify kernelOpts handling for AnacondaContainerInstaller

3cd232c

This commit makes the code similar to the other installers when handling the kernelOpts options. Ideally we would have one shared helper but one step at a time.

mvo5 force-pushed the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch from 970678d to 1e5ef98 Compare October 7, 2025 13:07

supakeen approved these changes Oct 7, 2025

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mvo5 added this pull request to the merge queue Oct 7, 2025

Merged via the queue into osbuild:main with commit 50c59d8 Oct 7, 2025
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mvo5 deleted the kernel-args-for-installer-more-2 branch October 7, 2025 15:02

thozza mentioned this pull request Oct 10, 2025

Many: adjust code to unified rpmmd.Package struct (HMS-9504) osbuild/osbuild-composer#4889

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