Re: [gentoo-user] efibootmgr "Could not prepare Boot variable: Read-only file system"

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 15 August 2017 22:12:41 Mick wrote:
> On Tuesday 15 Aug 2017 16:02:19 Mike Gilbert wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 2:17 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com>
wrote:
> > >> I can't recall if I did this myself in a moment of security induced
> > >> inspiration.  I doubt I did.  So how did this happen?  What is
> > >> responsible for mounting this fs?
> > >
> > > It looks like this never did turn into a news item:
> > > https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/35304b0db4de9e06fea3222
> > > 7537 9fa81
> > >
> > > You can remount it as rw if your tools don't do it automatically.  It
> > > might not hurt to file a bug if one doesn't already exist for the tool
> > > that isn't remounting it.
> >
> > Please bother efibootmgr upstream about it, or bother the OpenRC
> > maintainer who decided to break things.
>
> Thank you Rich, I suspected it was an intentional change and from a
> security perspective it is to be commended.  However, it could cause
> uninformed users like myself some lost time, thinking something may have
> gone wrong on our system.
>
> I submitted bug #627964:
>
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627964
>
> I think a news item although useful, on its own is not sufficient.  If
> remounting 'rw' and back again to 'ro' is not performed by the legit
> commands which touch efivars (e.g. efibootmgr, GRUB, et al), the HandBook
> should also be amended if it hasn't been already, because newbies will
> have one more excuse to pack it in and go back to *buntu.

That was an instructive conversation - thanks all. I had the same problem 
with systemd-boot while rebuild this box over the last few days. I don't 
know whether to raise a similar bug against systemd-boot now, after reading 
your bug report, Mick.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.