Re: [tlug] UEFI Partition for New Debian Install

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2018-05-05 07:17 +0900 (Sat), CL wrote:

> New (for me) problem.  My in-box backup HDD went Tango Union....

Just to correct your, uh, "technical" term there, that that should be
'Tango Uniform' in the NATO standard phonetic alphabet.

> sda1 = EFI System (FAT32), boot and esp flags are set
> sda2 = ext4
> 
> When I attempt to install Debian 9 in the ext4 partition, it fails due 
> to missing boot space.

I'm not sure if you're trying to install an encrypted root volume (if
not, you should be!), but when doing that you need a small unencrypted
ext{2,3,4} partition to store a kernel and initramfs that boots far
enough for you to enter the passphrase for the encrypted partition,
then mounts it as root and carries on. (I don't know if it's still
necessary if you're unencrypted LVM partitions, but it used to be.)
For example, here's the partition table and mountpoints on one of my
EFI systems:

    Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
     1      1049kB  538MB   537MB   fat32              boot, esp
     2      538MB   794MB   256MB   ext2
     3      794MB   31.3GB  30.5GB

    Filesystem                      Type Size  Used Use Free Mounted on
    mmcblk0p1                       vfat 511M  132K  1% 511M /boot/efi
    mmcblk0p2                       ext2 237M   68M 31% 157M /boot
    mapper/iambic--vg-root          ext4  25G   19G 83% 4.1G /

256 MB is plenty for the boot partition; I use this size and mine run
about 30% full after cleaning up old versions of the kernel+initramfs,
leaving the current and previous one.

In the Debian installer you'll want to choose manual partitioning and
set things up in the following way. (This is from memory so there may
be minor errors, but you'll get the general idea.)

1. As well as the EFI boot partition, create two more EFI partitions:
   {E1} of 256 MB and {E2} with the rest of the space.
2. Set and format {E1} as ext{2,3,4} and set the mountpoint to `/boot`.
3. Set {E2} as "volume for crypto".
4. Set up the crypto volume {C1} on {E1}. (You should get some message
   about how you have to write the partition table before you can do
   that.) This is where you set the passphrase.
5. After yet another partition table write, set and format {E1} as an
   LVM physical storage volume (PV). Create a volume group (VG) on it,
   and in that VG create two logical volumes (LVs), one for swap and
   one for root.
6. Heading back to the main partitioning screen after this, set the
   swap volume for swap, and the root volume as ext4 (or whatever turns
   your crank) and mountpoint `/`.
7. Continue with install.

cjs
-- 
Curt J. Sampson      <cjs@example.com>      +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
    - L Peter Deutsch