Re: Building IPFire without using loop devices

[Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>]

Hi Michael,

Sorry for slow reply, I have been a bit busy.

On 24/03/2026 18:16, Michael Tremer wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> On the last call, some people raised that the distribution no longer builds properly when running a recent version of GNOME or a similar desktop environment. We identified that the problem is udisk2 trying to figure out what the new device is that has just been mounted, not understanding that it is inside a container and that there should be no access.

That was me but not from the last call but from the following mail thread.

https://lists.ipfire.org/development/34f64d4b-4008-418b-83b0-e621bee9f999@ipfire.org/T/#t

> 
> Since loop devices are not namespaces in Linux, there is no way to get around this. However, I have put some code together that generates the image without using any loop devices whatsoever:
> 
>    https://git.ipfire.org/?p=people/ms/ipfire-2.x.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/no-loop
> 
> Could the people who have been affected by this and check if this branch builds without any problems and if the generated image is also bootable in either EFI, non-EFI or both modes, please?

I first tried running thew existing build process but with a usb disk drive mounted and accessed via a File Manager window. However the old build worked without any problems so I was not able to reproduce the previous problem I had.

So then I thought, okay then I will just try building the new branch and see how it goes. Unfortunately it failed. The failure message was:-

# Check if any files have been deleted
[ -s "/tmp/cleanup.log" ]
# Create the EFI partition
mformat \
	-F \
	-i /tmp/image.img@@536870912 \
	-N "341A5693" \
	-v "EFI" \
	-h 32 \
	-n 1 \
	-t $(( 65536 / 32 )) \
	::
# Copy all files to the partition
mcopy -s -i /tmp/image.img@@536870912 /tmp/root/boot/efi/* ::
# Show what has been copied
mdir -i /tmp/image.img@@536870912 ::
  Volume in drive : is EFI
  Volume Serial Number is 341A-5693
Directory for ::/

EFI          <DIR>     2026-04-03  14:11
         1 file                    0 bytes
                       2 841 190 400 bytes free

# Remove any copied content
rm -rf /tmp/root/boot/efi/*
# Print how much space we need
du -csh /tmp/root/boot/*
7.0M	/tmp/root/boot/System.map-6.18.7-ipfire
200K	/tmp/root/boot/config-6.18.7-ipfire
0	/tmp/root/boot/efi
25M	/tmp/root/boot/grub
73M	/tmp/root/boot/initramfs-6.18.7-ipfire.img
8.9M	/tmp/root/boot/vmlinuz-6.18.7-ipfire
114M	total
# Format them
mkfs.ext2 \
	-F \
	-E offset=4194304 \
	-U "88ce295a-436b-4bad-9509-07ec3a630029" \
	-d /tmp/root/boot \
	/tmp/image.img \
	520192
mke2fs 1.47.3 (8-Jul-2025)
Discarding device blocks:      0/520192\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b             \b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bdone
Creating filesystem with 520192 1k blocks and 130048 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 88ce295a-436b-4bad-9509-07ec3a630029
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
	8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185, 401409

Allocating group tables:  0/64\b\b\b\b\b     \b\b\b\b\bdone
Writing inode tables:  0/64\b\b\b\b\b     \b\b\b\b\bdone
Copying files into the device: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information:  0/64\b\b\b\b\b     \b\b\b\b\bdone

# Remove any copied content
rm -rf /tmp/root/boot/*
# Print how much space we need
du -csh /tmp/root/*
9.8M	/tmp/root/bin
0	/tmp/root/boot
0	/tmp/root/dev
18M	/tmp/root/etc
0	/tmp/root/home
1.2G	/tmp/root/lib
0	/tmp/root/lib64
0	/tmp/root/media
0	/tmp/root/mnt
68K	/tmp/root/opt
0	/tmp/root/proc
12K	/tmp/root/root
0	/tmp/root/run
12M	/tmp/root/sbin
4.3M	/tmp/root/srv
0	/tmp/root/sys
0	/tmp/root/tmp
750M	/tmp/root/usr
73M	/tmp/root/var
2.0G	total
# Create the root filesystem and input files
mkfs.ext4 \
	-F \
	-E offset=570425344 \
	-U "e041f3cc-df7e-4a3c-a2f7-8a2457b1a741" \
	-d /tmp/root \
	/tmp/image.img \
	2621440
mke2fs 1.47.3 (8-Jul-2025)
Discarding device blocks:      0/655360\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b             \b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bdone
Creating filesystem with 655360 4k blocks and 163840 inodes
Filesystem UUID: e041f3cc-df7e-4a3c-a2f7-8a2457b1a741
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
	32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912

Allocating group tables:  0/20\b\b\b\b\b     \b\b\b\b\bdone
Writing inode tables:  0/20\b\b\b\b\b     \b\b\b\b\bdone
Creating journal (16384 blocks): done
Copying files into the device: libhs.so.5.4.12: No space left on device while looking up "libhs.so.5.4.12"
mkfs.ext4: No space left on device while populating file system
make: *** [flash-images:172: /usr/src/log/flash-image] Error 1

Regards,

Adolf.

> 
> Feel free to hit me up with any problems or questions.
> 
> Best,
> -Michael