SUSE Manager system provisioning failing with kernel/initrd not found in saltenv 'base'

This document (000021368) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Manager 4.3.11

Situation

When scheduling an auto-installation via WebUI -> Systems -> SYSTEMNAME -> Provisioning, the action fails with errors similar to the following in the event log:

file_|-mgr_copy_kernel_|-/boot/uyuni-reinstall-kernel_|-managed:
    changes: {
        }
    comment: Source file salt://bootloader/1/s15sp5_ks/linux not found in saltenv 'base'
....
....
....
file_|-mgr_copy_initrd_|-/boot/uyuni-reinstall-initrd_|-managed:
    changes: {
        }
    comment: Source file salt://bootloader/1/s15sp5_ks/initrd not found in saltenv 'base'

Resolution

To address this issue, there are two possible workarounds:

Downgrade python3-salt salt salt-api salt-bash-completion salt-master to the previous version 3006.0-150400.8.49.2
Copy files manually to /srv/susemanager/salt/bootloader/ , in other words, replace the existing links with the respective kernel and initrd files. An example bash script is available in the "Additional Information" section.

Note: This issue is now partly fixed with SUSE Manager 4.3.12 in so far that new distributions will copy the actual files instead of using symlinks. Existing distributions will however still have the problem, which will be addressed with the release of version 4.3.13.

Cause

SUSE Manager 4.3.11 introduces salt-master version 3006.0-150400.8.54.1 which includes fixes for CVE-2024-22231 and CVE-2024-22232.
With these fixes included, it is not allowed to have symlinks inside "file_roots" which are pointing outside of the same file root, which is the situation when creating a new Distribution via SUSE Manager. For example:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 51 Jan 17 16:39 /srv/susemanager/salt/bootloader/1/s15sp5_ks/initrd -> /install/sles15sp5-x86_64/boot/x86_64/loader/initrd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 50 Jan 17 16:39 /srv/susemanager/salt/bootloader/1/s15sp5_ks/linux -> /install/sles15sp5-x86_64/boot/x86_64/loader/linux

Additional Information

The following script will replace links with files. It will copy the target file to linked-file.

#! /bin/bash

for I in $(find /srv/susemanager/salt/bootloader -type l) ; do
	if [ ! -e "$I" ] ; then
		echo "$I is broken link, skip"
	else
		ls -l "$I"
		FILE="$(ls -l "$I" | awk '{ print $NF }')"
		rm "$I" && cp -p "$FILE" "$I"
		ls -l "$I"
	fi
done

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.