/usr/sbin/meminfo-writer missing (fedora41)

[t0t0]

after boot this morning (i power down each evening) I got the usual notification that fedora41 template had updates, and started the update.

fedora41 result:

dom0 check:

the nature of the missing file has me concerned.

i’m very much a vanilla qubes user. i don’t mess around with the environments. i avoid installing anything outside the delivered repos.

any thoughts?

[ChrisA]

A quick search on the forum for meminfo-writer, landed me on:

Qubes OS updates Weekly Review - Y2025-W10

Qubes OS updates Weekly Review - Y2025-W10 Introduction Weekly review of new packages uploaded to Qubes OS repositories. Link to previous version here. Alphabetically sorted list of new packages uploaded to Qubes OS repositories Highlights custom-persist advanced feature & service for minimal state AppVMs. Preface Before proceeding with the details, it is necessary to explain the custom-persist and minimal state AppVMs. So what is custom-persist and a minimal state AppVM? It is neither a trad…

– it’s mentioned for r4.3 and Fedora 42, but maybe it somehow was also moved on r4.2?

[t0t0]

thanks for the reply.

i searched on the full path name, so didn’t see that one.

those changes related to meminfo-writer date back to march. why a problem today? i do my updates as soon as i see them come in.

[t0t0]

just for the f of it i tried launching the fedora41 update a second time this morning:

Updating fedora-41
ls: cannot access ‘/usr/sbin/meminfo-writer’: No such file or directory
Refreshing package info
Fetching packages:
alsa-sof-firmware-2025.05-1.fc41.noarch.rpm: Fetched
Updating packages.
alsa-sof-firmware-2025.05-1.fc41.noarch: Upgrade
alsa-sof-firmware-2025.01.1-1.fc41.noarch: Upgraded
Updated
Installed packages:
None
Updated packages:
alsa-sof-firmware 2025.01.1-1.fc41 → 2025.05-1.fc41
Removed packages:
None

[ChrisA]

Hi t0t0

I’m only guessing – a proper answer is beyond my knowledge of the system … maybe someone else will see the topic and can share the “why”.

[DVM]

This is why:

vmupdate/agent/source/plugins/fix_meminfo_writer_label.py

It is used to check the meminfo-writer SELinux label, but as you noticed, it’s not there anymore since it was moved.
The new /usr/bin path was added in version 4.3, but it was not backported to version 4.2, which is causing the error:

vmupdate: Fix `meminfo-writer` SELinux label for both bin & sbin

[alimirjamali]

@t0t0

the nature of the missing file has me concerned.

One of the Fedora 42 changes was unifying /usr/sbin and /usr/bin directories (more information here). Some of the Qubes OS utilities had to be relocated from the former directory to the latter.

@t0t0

i searched on the full path name, so didn’t see that one.

Look into /usr/bin directory. The meminfo-writer should have been relocated there.

@t0t0

those changes related to meminfo-writer date back to march. why a problem today?

The patches goes through thorough testing. It might take weeks or even months until they are delivered to stable branch.

@DVM

The new /usr/bin path was added in version 4.3, but it was not backported to version 4.2, which is causing the error:

Times flies. It was like yesterday.

[t0t0]

so, the update process is looking in the wrong place. i don’t have control over that. or do I?

[DVM]

Unless you’re having issues with SELinux labels, consider this line a harmless warning.

You can still fix this manually by editing /usr/lib/python3.11/site-packages/vmupdate/agent/source/plugins/fix_meminfo_writer_label.py in dom0 and by replacing /usr/sbin to /usr/bin in the meminfo_path variable.

[t0t0]

thanks for the info.