On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 09:08:10AM +0200, Richard Neuboeck wrote: > I've got an answer from David Lehman how the decision process for the > usage of biosboot works in anaconda: > > Here is the entire decision tree: > > - did the system boot in EFI mode or BIOS mode? > - EFI > - use gpt and never make biosboot > - BIOS > - is the disk larger than the max for msdos (2TB)? > - yes > - use gpt and ensure there's a biosboot partition > - no > - use msdos Either I'm not following that logic or I think something isn't behaving as advertised. Here's my situation .... I have a bog standard Dell PowerEdge 1850 -- same test machine I used in the initial Fedora 16 work that prompted me to start this thread -- which has no EFI, and boots from an old & small (20GB) SCSI disk. If I read the above correctly, I should _not_ need a biosboot partition, yet a Fedora 16 Kickstart install fails with the known partitioning error mentioned in bugzillas et al, unless I create one. What am I missing? Cheers, sr. > So in my preinstall script I check for EFI capabilities and the disk size: > > # get disk size in GB > DISKSIZE=`parted -sm /dev/$DEV unit GB print | grep -e "$DEV" | cut > -d: -f2 | sed -e 's/GB$//'` > if [ -e /sys/firmware/efi -o $DISKSIZE -gt 2100 ] > then > # bios boot partition necessary > echo "part biosboot --fstype=biosboot --size=1 --ondisk=$DEV" >> > $INCFILE > fi > > HTH > Richard > > > On 11.08.12 11:36, Richard Neuboeck wrote: > > Thanks! > > > > I mulled over the sources but didn't find the indicators for the final > > selection of gpt over msdos as partition table label. > > > > I'm not giving up yet :-) > > Richard > > > > On 10.08.12 23:41, Steve Rikli wrote: > >> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 09:57:26PM +0200, Richard Neuboeck wrote: > >>> Hi List, > >>> > >>> I'm in the same predicament as Steve. My manual test installs of > >>> Fedora 17 result in msdos and gpt partition table labels. Since I'm > >>> using kickstart and a pre install script to partition the disc I would > >>> also like to find a way to determine if a biosboot partition is > >>> necessary or not. > >>> > >>> The only sure reason to install a biosboot partition I could find was > >>> a disc >= 3TB. > >>> > >>> The UEFI test system I'm using definitely has UEFI enabled and since > >>> the disc has 3TB should use EFI. But I couldn't find efi in sysfs like > >>> anaconda tries to do to determine if it's an EFI capable system. > >>> However this system gets a gpt label in my tests. But I don't know how > >>> anaconda comes to that conclusion. > >> > >> I never heard/found any tips or other ideas, and I couldn't follow how > >> Anaconda decides what to do either; so I simply started grep'ing around > >> during a live %pre session to see what I could find. > >> > >> I came across /tmp/storage.log , which among many other things had a line > >> like this: > >> > >> storage: registered device format class BIOSBoot as biosboot > >> > >> which was about the only reference I could find to "biosboot" in the > >> live Kickstart session. I was thinking there might be something in > >> /proc/ or /sys/ or thereabouts, but found nothing I could make use of. > >> > >> In any case, my %pre disk partitioning script looks for that string, and > >> if found then it adds an entry for a biosboot partition similar to: > >> > >> part biosboot --size 1 --fstype biosboot > >> > >> This method has the advantage of being independent of disk size, and > >> also doesn't perform additional partitioning actions on older releases > >> where /tmp/storage.log reports nothing about biosboot. So I can keep > >> using the same %pre script to partition old & new Fedoras, CentOS, etc. > >> > >> The obvious peril is Fedora may change/move/etc. the string in some future > >> version of Anaconda, so I still occasionally keep an eye out for something > >> a bit more programmatic/definitive; we'll see how well it holds up. > >> > >> Cheers, > >> sr. > >> > >> > >>> So right now I'm only relying on the disk size to choose the partition > >>> layout in my preinstall script. > >>> > >>> Any pointers where I can find more details or information on how to > >>> make an educated guess on how to partition would be very welcome. > >>> > >>> Thanks! > >>> Richard > >>> > >>> > >>> On 09.06.12 01:00, Steve Rikli wrote: > >>>> Is there some programmatic way within Kickstart %pre to determine > >>>> if a "biosboot" partition is needed, or at least if it is an > >>>> available option/fstype? > >>>> > >>>> Like many folks, we create a "/tmp/partitions.inc" sort of > >>>> %include file in %pre, to partition the disk. > >>>> > >>>> Starting in Fedora16 a "part biosboot ..." partition is required, > >>>> and ideally we'd like to be able to use the same %pre script to > >>>> setup partitions on all the different Linux versions we need. > >>>> > >>>> We would be okay with "wasting" 1MB and always creating a biosboot > >>>> partition for any Linux, but it's not a supported type prior to > >>>> Fedora16, so that isn't an option. > >>>> > >>>> Thanks, sr. > >>>> _______________________________________________ Kickstart-list mailing list Kickstart-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/kickstart-list
