os-prober causes linux-image postinst script to load many filesystem modules from wrong kernel
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| os-prober (Ubuntu) |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
Binary package hint: os-prober
On Ubuntu Lucid and later, the os-prober package (which seems to be part of the default desktop install) arranges so that whenever you run update-grub, it tries to figure out what filesystem drivers it needs; as part of this testing it loads the modules for a whole bunch of filesystem types.
When you install an updated linux-image package, the postinst script runs update-grub.
This means that whenever you install a new kernel package on Lucid that doesn't bump the ABI, os-prober will load versions of a whole bunch of filesystem modules that you're not using in order to test whether they are needed. Since the postinst script is run after unpacking the new kernel, when a new kernel is released that doesn't bump the ABI, os-prober will load a whole bunch of kernel modules from the new kernel against the old running kernel! This is a rather unexpected interaction and seems potentially dangerous.
I've reported this bug against os-prober rather than linux since it doesn't seem that one can remove the update-grub call from the linux-image postinst script.
