<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div id="yiv2085206311"><div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="yiv2085206311"><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133130814763580"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133130814763581" class="yiv2085206311ms__id979"><div id="yiv2085206311"><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133105428910370"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133105428910371" class="yiv2085206311ms__id17806 yiv2085206311ms__id980"><div
id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910344"><span id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910363"></span></div><div><br id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910346"></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;" id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910350" class="yiv2085206311ms__id15978 yiv2085206311ms__id17807 yiv2085206311ms__id981"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="yiv2085206311ms__id15980 yiv2085206311ms__id17808 yiv2085206311ms__id982"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <div style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); height: 0px; line-height: 0; font-size: 0px;" class="yiv2085206311hr yiv2085206311yui-non yiv2085206311yui-skip"></div> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Will <will.sterling@gmail.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> CLUE's mailing list
<clue@cluedenver.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, February 21, 2012 4:38 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [clue] revisiting boot partition and LVM + grub<br> </font> </div> <br>
<div id="yiv2085206311">Fedora switched from Grub Legacy to Grub 2 in Fedora 16. There should be nothing holding back a fresh install from not having /boot on the same logical volume as /.<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>As to the why..</div><div>
Grub Legacy relied on loading a file system, /boot, to continue chain loading an OS and it only had support for a few file systems built in. Grub 2 gets around this by loading the first block of a stage 1.5 image directly from a block address on disk. That image then has the drivers to load LVM, MD RAID, etc. and continue up the chain.<br>
<br><div class="yiv2085206311gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:20 PM, Aaron D. Johnson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:adj@fnord.greeley.co.us" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:adj@fnord.greeley.co.us">adj@fnord.greeley.co.us</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid;" id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133130814763589" class="yiv2085206311gmail_quote">
<div class="yiv2085206311HOEnZb"><div class="yiv2085206311h5">mike havlicek writes:<br>
> I always put /boot on a dedicated "traditional" partition but have<br>
> been thinking about LVM and seem to recall somewhere sometime ago it<br>
> being suggested that /boot could be on a logical volume. It seems<br>
> that it was more a grub issue...???<br>
><br>
> Any pointers to why /boot can or can't be on a logical volume. IE<br>
> possibility/impossibility of building a system that can boot from a<br>
> single disk with only "8e" partition type?<br>
<br>
</div></div><div>You don't mention what distro you're running, but there's an article<br>
with some promising information to be found at<br>
http://jim.studt.net/depository/index.php/debian-lenny-and-grub-with-boot-in-lvm<br>
<br>
I can't say if there are any distro installers that support it at this<br>
point. I don't recall it being an option with Fedora 15, and it's<br>
definitely not something the Debian 6.0 installer can handle.<br>
<br>
[I had a big bunch of text in here describing my setup, but it's not<br>
really relevant (/boot is in an MD RAID1 mirror, not on a logical<br>
volume, and there are _no_ type 8e "partitions" (GPT, baby!).]<br>
<br>
Let us know how it goes.</div><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_1331308147635138"> </div><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_1331308147635140"><font color="#888888">- Aaron</font><br><br>
===================================================================================================</div><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_1331308147635118"> </div><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910344"><span id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910363">Thanks for the info on grub2... And its presence on fedora16.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133130814763570"><span id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_18_133105428910372">So far have experimented with VMs (VMware ESX4i) with Fedora16 and CentOS 6.2. Did a USB stick with the Fedora16</span></div><div><span id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_1331308147635154">Live Security SPIN. Disk/Stick setup was pretty unpleasant ... probably since it was my first run.. </span></div><div><span>Otherwise Fedora16 was fairly straight forward as the installation media had grub2 as Will pointed out. I did put /boot</span></div><div><span>on its own logical volume
requiring typing in the mount point since /boot was not a menu item within the lvm setup in the </span></div><div><span>Graphical "manual" disk setup option. Don't </span><span>really like doing things that way anyway. Trying to get the sizes the way I "think"</span></div><div><span>I like them </span><span>is "easier" from a shell.....8^)</span></div><div> </div><div><span id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_1331308147635170"></span> </div><div><span>Eventually grub2+lvm-boot to work from a CentOS 6.2 minimal install starting point using some partitioning + backup/restore acrobatics.</span></div><div><span>I chose to get the grub source from <a href="ftp://ftp.fsf.org">ftp.fsf.org</a> as I didn't see it available in a "yum search" out of the box............ This was</span></div><div><span>actually a fun exercise where I did a "grub-mkrescue" to get a grub iso => CD. I found it to be a nice way to get familiar
with</span></div><div><span>differences in "grub>" commands. BTW "grub> insmod lvm" turned out to be a pretty good thing to do in my little experiment 8^).</span></div><div><span>This leads me to a question of defeating my purpose (separate /boot disk area within lvm so as to be able to resize when an update involving the kernel is possibly going to go over available space and I am not yet sure what backup kernel(s) I am ready to remove) </span></div><div><span>.... Not really I think ... But I imagine that blindly running an update that </span><span>includes the kernel and subsequent grub run will mess things up...... </span></div><div><span id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_133130814763572"> How to fine tune the yum... </span></div><div id="yiv2085206311yui_3_2_0_19_1331308147635163"><span> </span></div><div><span>Don't yet know what to say about Debian except 6.04 seems to uses grub2 during the install...(my resulting
system has /boot on lvm)... .</span></div><div><span></span><span> As a VM </span><span>trying to install VMware tools got goofy surrounding gcc in particular ... </span></div><div><span>Took a rabbit hole down to open pandora's box ==>(I wonder </span><span>if I should try a newer ESX)...........</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>I think the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS USB stick should work which is what I intend to modify, but I still kinda wonder about the update</span></div><div><span>issues surrounding the kernel once the grub version is changed...... (Maybe its moot beyond LTS) If not again analog apt system </span></div><div><span>fine tuning I suppose ??</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Oh, I have also found various fdisk representations e.g. starting block and DOS compatibility mode between versions available on</span></div><div><span>installation media and my favorite systemrescueCD to be a bit
confusing particularly when choosing the start so as to install the</span></div><div><span>grub on a<var id="yui-ie-cursor"></var> HDD. I think I remember choosing 3 rather than 1 or 2 for a starting block (or was it in a different unit to have those values :)</span></div><div><span>the first go around on whichever VM install </span><span>I was doing ... Pretty useful account.... I would have to check my notes to be accurate. But the point is that getting the starting position </span><span>for the 1st LVM partition while reserving space for the grub install was an issue... I think</span></div><div><span>it would be useful for me to know how much "space" is required for the bootstrapping tools and how to allocate that efficiently... </span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Another </span><span>rabbit hole
??</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>-Mike</span></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div> </div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>