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Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition

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  Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Albin <public@inquisitive.se> - 2018-09-04 13:40 +0200
    Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2018-09-04 14:00 +0200
      Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2018-09-04 20:10 +0200
        Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2018-09-04 20:30 +0200
          Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2018-09-04 20:50 +0200
            Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Dominik George <natureshadow@debian.org> - 2018-09-04 21:10 +0200
              Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org> - 2018-09-04 22:20 +0200
      Re: Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition Albin <public@inquisitive.se> - 2018-09-04 20:40 +0200

#199750 — Can't install Debian without dedicated /boot partition

Hi!

I'm trying to install Debian Stretch with full disk encryption 
(LVM-on-LUKS). But when the installer is trying to install Grub in 
crashes with the following error message:

```
Unable to install GRUB in dummy
Executing 'grub-install dummy' failed.

This is a fatal error.
```

The disk is partitioned with an 512MiB (specified in bytes) EFI 
partition and the rest in an LUKS encrypted container. The container 
contains a LVM volume group with a swap partition and a root partition.

I'm able to install NixOS with GRUB without needing an separate /boot 
partition. So I believe it isn't a limitation in GRUB. Can't find any 
information in the documentation that says that a separate /boot 
partition is mandatory.

The ISO is written to the USB memory using Etcher with verification 
turned on. It was verified using SHA512 sums, which itself was verified 
with the GPG keys. I also ran the tool inside the Debian installer for 
verifying the installation media. The image I use is the netinstaller 
for Stretch (version 9.5).

Should I be able to install Debian Stretch without a separate /boot 
partition?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Albin

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#199752

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Hi,

> I'm trying to install Debian Stretch with full disk encryption
> (LVM-on-LUKS). But when the installer is trying to install Grub in crashes
> with the following error message:
> 
> ```
> Unable to install GRUB in dummy
> Executing 'grub-install dummy' failed.
> 
> This is a fatal error.
> ```
> 
> […]
>
> I'm able to install NixOS with GRUB without needing an separate /boot
> partition. So I believe it isn't a limitation in GRUB. Can't find any
> information in the documentation that says that a separate /boot partition
> is mandatory.

This message does not have to do anything with a /boot partition - where
your OS is isntalled does not matter for grub-install, grub-install only
intalls the bootloader part, either to MBR or to the EFI ESP partition. What
could happen if GRUB does not find your kernel image in /boot is that it
does not generate a GRUB record for it during update-grub, but it will not
cause the installation to fail.

That said, have you made sure to mount the EFI ESP partition as /boot/efi?

There are quite a few mentions of this error spread over all kinds of
distributions (just try asking your search engine of choice for
debian "grubd-install dummy"). E.g.:

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=865417

Cheers,
Nik

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#199769

Le 04/09/2018 à 13:50, Dominik George a écrit :
> 
>> I'm trying to install Debian Stretch with full disk encryption
>> (LVM-on-LUKS). But when the installer is trying to install Grub in crashes
>> with the following error message:
>>
>> Unable to install GRUB in dummy
>> Executing 'grub-install dummy' failed.
>>
>> This is a fatal error.
>>
>> […]
> 
> This message does not have to do anything with a /boot partition - where
> your OS is isntalled does not matter for grub-install, grub-install only
> intalls the bootloader part, either to MBR or to the EFI ESP partition.

*cough*
You should get some information about how GRUB is installed and works.
GRUB comes in two main parts :
- the core image in various locations (+ boot image in some boot sector 
for GRUB BIOS)
- the /boot/grub directory

GRUB EFI core image is written in the EFI system partition mounted on 
/boot/efi. /boot/grub is, well, wherever you or the distribution decide. 
It seems that some distributions copy a part or all of /boot/grub in the 
EFI system partition along with the core image, but Debian does not.

To make long story short : the Debian installer does not support an 
encrypted /boot. This requires to add GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y to 
/etc/default/grub, but the installer does not handle this. I am even 
surprised that the installer let you go past the partitioning stage with 
an encrypted /boot.

However you can finish the installation without installing GRUB and 
install it afterwards.

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#199774

>*cough*
>You should get some information about how GRUB is installed and works.
>GRUB comes in two main parts :
>- the core image in various locations (+ boot image in some boot sector
>
>for GRUB BIOS)
>- the /boot/grub directory

Yep. I basically said that (in paragraphs you removed from the quote :)).

Can you explain why this fails on installation, where /boot/grub can be written? I'd expect it to fail booting, but not installing.

-nik

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#199779

Le 04/09/2018 à 20:21, Dominik George a écrit :
>> *cough*
>> You should get some information about how GRUB is installed and works.
>> GRUB comes in two main parts :
>> - the core image in various locations (+ boot image in some boot sector
>> for GRUB BIOS)
>> - the /boot/grub directory
> 
> Yep. I basically said that (in paragraphs you removed from the quote :)).

AFAICS you did not write anything about /boot/grub.

> Can you explain why this fails on installation, where /boot/grub can be written?

grub-install must hardcode the location of /boot/grub into the core 
image. I guess it sees that /boot/grub is encrypted but encryption is 
not enabled for GRUB.

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#199780

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

> AFAICS you did not write anything about /boot/grub.

I did not mention it by name, I only said there are two parts and I do not
see why the mere installation to the MBR or to the EFI area should fail ;).

> > Can you explain why this fails on installation, where /boot/grub can be written?
> 
> grub-install must hardcode the location of /boot/grub into the core image. I
> guess it sees that /boot/grub is encrypted but encryption is not enabled for
> GRUB.

Oh ok. If that's true, probably a reasonable error message would be helpful
☺.

-nik

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#199783

Le 04/09/2018 à 21:05, Dominik George a écrit :
>> AFAICS you did not write anything about /boot/grub.
> 
> I did not mention it by name, I only said there are two parts

I do not remember reading about this either.

>> grub-install must hardcode the location of /boot/grub into the core image. I
>> guess it sees that /boot/grub is encrypted but encryption is not enabled for
>> GRUB.
> 
> Oh ok. If that's true, probably a reasonable error message would be helpful

Regretfully, the Debian installer main interface is not verbose about 
GRUB installation errors. The installer logs (in console tty4 and 
/var/log) should be more detailed.

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#199777

Hi!

> That said, have you made sure to mount the EFI ESP partition as /boot/efi?

I've just create an partition in the installer with the type `EFI`. Is 
this what you mean, or do you mean something else?

> There are quite a few mentions of this error spread over all kinds of
> distributions (just try asking your search engine of choice for
> debian "grubd-install dummy"). E.g.:
> 
>    https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=865417

Thanks for the tip! I'll read trough them and see if there's a solution. 
I'll also test to change some settings in BIOS.

Regards,
Albin

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