[Pkg-cryptsetup-devel] Bug#428329: Bug in debian-Installer/initramfs when I use "GUID Partition Table (GPT)" with a crypted root filesystem

[Frans Pop]

On Monday 03 December 2007, David Härdeman wrote:
> >It it necessary to go through GRUB before select LILO !!!

Not really. Grub is default for, we think, very good reasons.

If you want to use lilo, either install with 'expert' or 'priority=medium' 
and just select the lilo menu entry instead of grub, or during a normal 
install, choose <go back> on the first grub screen and the choose the lilo 
menu entry (which IMO is not "going through" grub).

Why is it that you want lilo instead of grub?

> What happens if you don't? This sounds like a separate bug report should
> be filed against the appropriate part of debian-installer (discuss on
> debian-boot at lists.debian.org if you're unsure which component to report
> it against).

To David:
Why a separate BR? What is the "other issue" in this one?
Even if it is a separate issue, this report should be cloned rather than a 
new one filed, and that generally is the job of maintainers, not users.

> >(initramfs) _
> >(initramfs) cat /proc/cmdline
> >
> >auto BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=fe01  (The information which you request)

The problem here seems to be that either lilo or lilo-installer fails to set 
root to the correct path (/dev/mapper/*) and falls back to the major/minor 
representation.
I doubt fixing this will be a priority for anybody (lilo seems to be pretty 
much in maintenance mode), but patches are of course welcome.

> Aha! root=fe01 means that root is on the block device with major 254
> (0xfe) and minor 1 (0x01). Major 254 is device-mapper and devices are
> dynamically allocated minor numbers starting from 0. This means that
> when you setup the devices in debian-installer, you got the following
> layout:
>
> /dev/mapper/sda2_crypt (swap), major 254, minor 0
> /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt (root), major 254, minor 1
>
> Root is on /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt so lilo encoded root=fe01, but the
> next time you boot, /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt is brought up first, which
> gives it major 254, minor 0, which is why it can't be found.
>
> I'm pretty certain that everything would have worked if the root device
> would have been created first during installation
> (making it /dev/mapper/sda2_crypt with major 254, minor 0) and swap
> second.

IMO it would be good to test if grub has the same issue or that providing 
the correct device path in the root= boot parameter somehow makes the 
initramfs scripts do the right thing.

> So this is not really a bug in cryptsetup, but a problem in the
> interaction between device-mapper devices and lilo in debian-installer.

Isn't providing consistent mapping across reboots (or between installation 
and reboot) something that cryptsetup (and its initramfs hooks) should 
provide?

Cheers,
FJP
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