[Vmdebootstrap-devel] Bug#850206: debootstrap output not available

[Antoine Beaupré]

Package: vmdebootstrap
Version: 1.7-1
Severity: minor

In newer vmdeboostrap versions, I am not sure since when, debootstrap
output is hidden from view when launched. This makes it frustratingly
hard to figure out what is going on when an image is built.

For example, while building a stretch image here, I got this:

Creating disk image
Creating partitions
Creating filesystem ext4
Mounting /dev/mapper/loop2p1 on /tmp/tmpo5F5FJ
Debootstrapping stretch [amd64]
[...]

The "[...]" happened to hang because of a custom package I added to
the build, but I had no way to tell. It's only after 10+ minutes that
I started to wonder if something was wrong, and I had to dig through
piles of ps axfwu, strace -p and lsof -p to try and understand what
was happening.

It would be nice if the output was logged somewhere. I expected it to
be on stderr or somewhere visible, or at least in the logfile (which I
enabled with --log and --log-level debug).

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.6
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'proposed-updates'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.7.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages vmdebootstrap depends on:
ii  debootstrap         1.0.67
ii  kpartx              0.5.0-6+deb8u2
ii  libjs-sphinxdoc     1.4.6-1~bpo8+1
ii  parted              3.2-7
ii  python-cliapp       1.20150829-1~bpo8+1
ii  python-distro-info  0.14
ii  python2.7           2.7.9-2+deb8u1
pn  python:any          <none>
ii  qemu-utils          1:2.1+dfsg-12+deb8u6

Versions of packages vmdebootstrap recommends:
ii  dosfstools        3.0.27-1
ii  extlinux          3:6.03+dfsg-5+deb8u1
ii  grub2-common      2.02~beta2-22+deb8u1
ii  python-guestfs    1:1.28.1-1
ii  qemu-system       1:2.1+dfsg-12+deb8u6
ii  qemu-user-static  1:2.1+dfsg-12+deb8u6
ii  squashfs-tools    1:4.2+20130409-2

Versions of packages vmdebootstrap suggests:
pn  cmdtest       <none>
ii  mbr           1.1.11-5+b1
ii  pandoc        1.12.4.2~dfsg-1+b14
pn  u-boot:armhf  <none>

-- no debconf information