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Avoid updating the initramfs twice for some cases

Benjamin Drung requested to merge bdrung/initramfs-tools:avoid-double-generation into debian/latest

When installing/upgrading packages (e. g. a kernel and initramfs-tools), the same initrd is generated twice:

$ apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y zstd initramfs-tools linux-image-generic
[...]
Setting up initramfs-tools-core (0.145) ...
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.145) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Setting up linux-image-6.12.16-amd64 (6.12.16-1) ...
I: /vmlinuz.old is now a symlink to boot/vmlinuz-6.12.16-amd64
I: /initrd.img.old is now a symlink to boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64
I: /vmlinuz is now a symlink to boot/vmlinuz-6.12.16-amd64
I: /initrd.img is now a symlink to boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64
Setting up linux-image-amd64 (6.12.16-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.40-7) ...
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.145) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64

Remember the timestamp when the dpkg trigger is set in the file /run/update-initramfs.dpkg-trigger. Then only update the initramfs if it is not newer than the time the trigger was created.

This will solve the example given above:

$ apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y zstd initramfs-tools linux-image-generic
[...]
Setting up initramfs-tools-core (0.145) ...
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.145) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Setting up linux-image-6.12.16-amd64 (6.12.16-1) ...
I: /vmlinuz.old is now a symlink to boot/vmlinuz-6.12.16-amd64
I: /initrd.img.old is now a symlink to boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64
I: /vmlinuz is now a symlink to boot/vmlinuz-6.12.16-amd64
I: /initrd.img is now a symlink to boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64
Setting up linux-image-amd64 (6.12.16-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.40-7) ...
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.145) ...
update-initramfs: /boot/initrd.img-6.12.16-amd64 has already been updated (since timestamp 1740772553).

This approach will not help, when the update-initramfs trigger is set by another package (e. g. clevis-initramfs). That would need support from the dpkg trigger (see Debian bug #1099136).

LP: #1466965

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