Bug 1080790

Summary:	EFI boot from software raid1
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE Distribution	Reporter:	Marco M. <jjletho67-esus>
Component:	Documentation	Assignee:	Frank Sundermeyer <fs>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:	Frank Sundermeyer <fs>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P5 - None
Version:	Leap 42.3
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	Other
OS:	Other
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description Marco M. 2018-02-13 11:55:32 UTC

I think something is missing in the installation guide. The question is what is the best partition layout to have full boot and system redundancy with software raid1 and EFI boot mode? 

I did several tests and toughts (https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/526269-EFI-boot-from-software-raid1) and i ended up in trying to manage two manually aligned efi partitions. This way looks promising but I discovered a blocking bug (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1059169).

While waiting for then resolution i discovered this in the SUSE "Storage Administration Guide" 

"
For UEFI machines, you need to set up a dedicated /boot/efi partition. It needs to be VFAT-formatted, and may reside on the RAID 1 device to prevent booting problems in case the physical disk with /boot/efi fail
"
(https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-12/stor_admin/data/sec_raidroot_require.html)

In opensuse guides I have not found anything similar. I did a test and this configuration has worked fine for me! 

So if this is the official and supported way to have EFI partition redundancy in opensuse i think it should be documented, if this is not the way (and there are some doubts on it, especially when opensuse is not the only os installed, see my forum thread) the documentation should clearly say what is the best solution (and hopefully someone should think to solve the bug i mentioned before if that way the better one).

Comment 1 Frank Sundermeyer 2018-05-18 13:51:12 UTC

The openSUSE Leap 15 Start Up Guide will contain the following:

    <varlistentry>
     <term>Custom Partitioning on UEFI Machines</term>
     <listitem>
      <para>
       A UEFI machine <emphasis>requires</emphasis> an EFI system partition
       that must be mounted to <filename>/boot/efi</filename>. This partition
       must be formatted with the <literal>FAT32</literal> file system.
      </para>
      <para>
       If an EFI system partition is already present on your system (for
       example from a previous Windows installation) use it by mounting it to
       <filename>/boot/efi</filename> without formatting it.
      </para>
      <para>
       If no EFI system partition is present on your UEFI machine, make sure to
       create it. The EFI system partition must be a physical partition, RAID,
       LVM and other technologies are not supported. It needs to be formatted
       with the FAT32 file system.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

Comment 2 Frank Sundermeyer 2018-05-18 13:55:52 UTC

Sorry, the last paragraph correctly reads like this:


      <para>
       If no EFI system partition is present on your UEFI machine, make sure to
       create it. The EFI system partition must be a physical partition or RAID
       1. Other RAID levels, LVM and other technologies are not supported. It
       needs to be formatted with the FAT32 file system.
      </para>