[Bug 2045561] Re: linux: please move dmi-sysfs.ko (CONFIG_DMI_SYSFS for SMBIOS support) from linux-modules-extra to linux-modules

This bug is awaiting verification that the linux-gcp/6.8.0-1008.9 kernel
in -proposed solves the problem. Please test the kernel and update this
bug with the results. If the problem is solved, change the tag
'verification-needed-noble-linux-gcp' to 'verification-done-noble-linux-
gcp'. If the problem still exists, change the tag 'verification-needed-
noble-linux-gcp' to 'verification-failed-noble-linux-gcp'.


If verification is not done by 5 working days from today, this fix will
be dropped from the source code, and this bug will be closed.


See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how
to enable and use -proposed. Thank you!


** Tags added: kernel-spammed-noble-linux-gcp-v2 verification-needed-noble-linux-gcp

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2045561

Title:
linux: please move dmi-sysfs.ko (CONFIG_DMI_SYSFS for SMBIOS support)
from linux-modules-extra to linux-modules

Status in linux package in Ubuntu:
Fix Released
Status in linux source package in Jammy:
Fix Released
Status in linux source package in Lunar:
Won't Fix
Status in linux source package in Mantic:
Fix Released
Status in linux source package in Noble:
Fix Released

Bug description:
SRU Justification

[Impact]

The dmi-sysfs.ko module (CONFIG_DMI_SYSFS) is currently shipped in
linux-modules-extra. This makes it hard to pull in via the linux-
virtual package, it can only come from the linux-generic one that also
pulls in the firmware and everything else needed for baremetal, and
that serves no purpose in a qemu VM. This stops VMs using these
kernels from being configurable using qemu or cloud-hypervisor's
SMBIOS type 11 strings. This feature is supported and used widely by
systemd:

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/smbios-type-11.html
https://systemd.io/CREDENTIALS/

A user launching a VM using the linux-kvm kernel image is not able to
specify SMBIOS strings to automatically configured userspace services
and programs due to the lack of this kconfig. We make extensive use of
these in systemd's upstream CI, which is running on Github Actions,
which uses Jammy, so it would be great to have this backported.

For example:

qemu-system-x86_64 \
        -machine type=q35,accel=kvm,smm=on \
        -smp 2 \
        -m 1G \
        -cpu host \
        -nographic \
        -nodefaults \
        -serial mon:stdio \
        -drive if=none,id=hd,file=ubuntu_jammy.raw,format=raw \
        -device virtio-scsi-pci,id=scsi \
        -device scsi-hd,drive=hd,bootindex=1 \
        -smbios type=11,value=io.systemd.credential:mycred=supersecret

[Fix]

Please consider moving this module to linux-modules.

These are already enabled in the 'main' kernel config, and in other
distros. In Debian/Archlinux/Fedora it is a built-in, and on SUSE it
is a module installed by default.

To verify this works, it is sufficient to check that the
/sys/firmware/dmi/entries/ directory in sysfs is present:

$ ls /sys/firmware/dmi/entries/
0-0 126-1 126-4 126-8 130-0 133-0 136-0 140-2 15-0 18-0 21-1 221-1 24-0 7-1 8-2 8-6
1-0 126-10 126-5 126-9 131-0 134-0 14-0 140-3 16-0 19-0 219-0 221-2 3-0 7-2 8-3 9-0
12-0 126-2 126-6 127-0 131-1 135-0 140-0 140-4 17-0 2-0 22-0 221-3 4-0 8-0 8-4 9-1
126-0 126-3 126-7 13-0 132-0 135-1 140-1 14-1 17-1 21-0 221-0 222-0 7-0 8-1 8-5

Without this module installed and loaded, the directory won't be
there. Once enabled, it will be there.

[Test]

1. pull built linux-modules packages for architectures with do_extras_package
set to true;
2. extract the deb and check if dmi-sysfs kernel module file exists:

$ dpkg-deb -R linux-modules-*.deb .
$ find . -name dmi-sysfs.ko\*

[Regression Potential]

Moving a module from a less-common to a more-common package should not
have any negative side effects. The main effect will be a little more
disk space used by the more common package, whether the module is in
use or not. There will also be more functionality available in the
default installation, which means a slightly increased surface and
possibility of new bugs in case it gets used.

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