iwlwifi: Unknown symbol iwl_mei_is_connected

[You-Sheng Yang]

[SRU Justification]

[Impact]

backport-iwlwifi-dkms has a few problems to prevent it from loading either kernel modules itself or the runtime firmware correctly.

The first issue is "unknown symbol iwl_mei_is_connected" error at module probing. This affects revsions >= 9241 where iwlmei module was first introduced in commit 71e53a8aae59 ("mirror: multi-input commit"). This can be addressed by cherry picking commit cc7d59edeeae ("[BUGFIX][NOUPSTREAM] iwlwifi: bump min kernel version for iwlmei") of rev 9255 that bumps iwlmei prerequisite kernel version to 5.14, and commit 87dce6e9817a ("[BUGFIX][NOUPSTREAM] iwlwifi: iwlmei isn't going to be merged anytime soon") of rev 9543 that bumps to 5.20. Therefore this affects Impish & Jammy that currently have 9340.

The second problem is that even we addressed 9340 with aforementioned fix backported, the iwlwifi module may still fail to load firmware that is known fixed in at least 9580 that is being proposed. This would affects Focal oem-5.14 as well.

[Fix]

Bump to 9580 that fixes both issues stated above.

[Test Case]

Compile and run against Focal oem-5.14/hwe-5.13/hwe-5.15 kernels, as well as Impish 5.13 and Jammy 5.15.

[Where problems could occur]

While the revision number represents the commits since the git root commit of backport-iwlwifi, this is going to back port more than a thousand commits for Focal (8324 -> 9580) and 240 ones for Impish/Jammy (9340 -> 9580), there can always be issue like we have here now or later for kernels of a more recent version. While this package is to enable people running legacy kernels to be able to enjoy their new toys, new hardware support and bug fixes shall be backported as long as needed to justify its name "backport-iwlwifi-dkms" here.

========== original bug report ==========

Since backport-iwlwifi version 9241[1], a new module iwlmei was introduced but not yet included in the dkms.conf installed. This fails the kernel module loading with:

  iwlwifi: Unknown symbol iwl_mei_is_connected (err -2)

[1]: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/backport-iwlwifi.git/commit/?id=71e53a8aae592d02972522561eac899311ea9319

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

This backports two commits from:

* https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/backport-iwlwifi.git/commit/?id=8e2e67754e3e5d2819c4071b9b3d5a2ba890e9b4
* https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/backport-iwlwifi.git/commit/?id=87dce6e9817a64a51aa2719d7f8a080ae6a436a4

which would effectively disable iwlmei before 5.20. As a result, also drop the patch "0010-mei_cl_bus-fix-build-error-with-kernels-5.13.patch" for bug 1951580.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "backport-iwlwifi-dkms_9340-0ubuntu6.debdiff" seems to be a debdiff. The ubuntu-sponsors team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review and hopefully sponsor the debdiff. If the attachment isn't a patch, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are member of the ~ubuntu-sponsors, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issue please contact him.]

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

Fixing 9340 doesn't enable us to load /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-67.ucode successfully. This would bring latest verified rev 9580 to Ubuntu instead.

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

Update debian/changelog to include bug number.

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

Prebuilt binaries are available in https://launchpad.net/~vicamo/+archive/ubuntu/ppa-1948375.

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

backport-iwlwifi-dkms/jammy is also being upgraded to 9858 in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/backport-iwlwifi-dkms/+bug/1966627

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

Need sponsoring for focal and impish. The Jammy one must be upgraded to a later revision 9858 in bug 1966627 instead.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

jammy is in unapproved queue now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package backport-iwlwifi-dkms - 9858-0ubuntu1

---------------
backport-iwlwifi-dkms (9858-0ubuntu1) jammy; urgency=low

  * New release (LP: #1966627)
    - upstream version 9858 commit d0c7cb83a3772e.

backport-iwlwifi-dkms (9580-0ubuntu1) jammy; urgency=low

  * New release (LP: #1962704)
    - refresh patches.
    - upstream version 9580 commit a0a813b1546992.

 -- You-Sheng Yang <email address hidden> Fri, 25 Mar 2022 19:27:00 +0800

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

backport-iwlwifi-dkms_9580-0ubuntu1~21.10.1.1_source.changes sponsored into impish

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

backport-iwlwifi-dkms_9580-0ubuntu1~20.04.1.1_source.changes sponsored into focal

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The rationale for SRU to impish is clear-cut, as you explain that the package currently in impish is unusable due to symbol resolution errors and cannot work for any users.

But for focal you say that the iwlwifi module *may* fail to load firmware; this implies that the package currently in focal can work for some users, which means that there is the possibility of this new version regressing the package for those users. The SRU policy says:

   For Long Term Support releases we regularly want to enable new hardware. Such changes are appropriate provided that we can ensure not to affect upgrades on existing hardware.

This bug report lacks information about how you have ensured this will not regress existing hardware and does not have a standing SRU exception, therefore as written does not fit our SRU policy.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Hello You-Sheng, or anyone else affected,

Accepted backport-iwlwifi-dkms into impish-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/backport-iwlwifi-dkms/9580-0ubuntu1~21.10.1.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-impish to verification-done-impish. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-impish. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[You-Sheng Yang (vicamo)]

Verified backport-iwlwifi-dkms/impish-proposed version 9580-0ubuntu1~21.10.1.1 against kernel 5.13.0-41-generic.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package backport-iwlwifi-dkms - 9580-0ubuntu1~21.10.1.1

---------------
backport-iwlwifi-dkms (9580-0ubuntu1~21.10.1.1) impish; urgency=low

  * New release (LP: #1962704)
    - refresh patches.
    - upstream version 9580 commit a0a813b1546992.

  [ Dimitri John Ledkov ]
  * Bump obsolete-by to Linux 5.16

 -- You-Sheng Yang <email address hidden> Wed, 02 Mar 2022 14:57:14 +0800

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for backport-iwlwifi-dkms has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

An upload of backport-iwlwifi-dkms to focal-proposed has been rejected from the upload queue for the following reason: "Steve's question from 2022-05-07 on LP: #1962704 remains unanswered; rejecting from the queue in the hope that this either prompts someone to look at the bug, or that no-one cares about this anymore. Also: several of the bugs referenced in the changelog have subsequently been marked as Fix Released for focal, and don't seem to correspond to what the changelog describes as fixing anymore.".