Bug#504752: grub2: fails to detect free space for embedding core on GPT labeled disks

[Michael Renner]

Package: grub2
Version: 1.96+20080724-11
Severity: important

grub2 fails to detect free space for embedding it's core.img when necessary (e.g. lvm-root) when being confronted with a GPT disklabel.


With this layout (output from "parted -l") 

Model: Areca raid10-PV (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 200GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      8225kB  32.0GB  32.0GB

'grub-install /dev/sdc' returns with

grub-setup: error: Core image is too big for embedding, but this is required when
the root device is on a RAID array or LVM volume.

I explicitly made that partition start one sector later than default, because GPT partitions apparently start at "17.4kB" compared to the "32.2kB" for msdos when created with parted/gnu-fdisk, and the "17.4kB" might be a bit too few space for the ~25-30KiB the core.img takes with the needed modules included.


When using a msdos disklabel:

Model: Areca raid10-PV (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 200GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  32.0GB  32.0GB  primary

everything works fine.


Given that multi-terabyte disks will be available very soon (and you easily reach this limit with RAID even today) and the flexibility a LV-root offers, I tagged this as important.


best regards,
Michael

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub2 depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]   1.5.22           Debian configuration management sy
ii  grub-pc                 1.96+20080724-11 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 

grub2 recommends no packages.

grub2 suggests no packages.

-- debconf information excluded