MAAS fast-path EFI install creates ESP that's too small
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
curtin |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Blake Rouse | ||
curtin (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
A MAAS fast-path install to an EFI-based computer creates an EFI System Partition (ESP) that's 100MiB in size. Such a small ESP can result in a number of problems, as described in several earlier bug reports (for non-MAAS installs) and on various external Web pages:
https:/
https:/
http://
https:/
That's a lot to read, and unfortunately, size recommendations have gone up over time as new implementation-
I recommend 512MiB as a minimum because I've encountered, and seen user reports of, specific EFI implementations with bugs that cause the EFI to be unable to reliably read all files on the partition when the FAT32 filesystem is under 512MiB. I have an Intel DG43NB, for instance, on which files will randomly "disappear" from the EFI when the ESP is smaller than 512MiB. Such problems are rare, but frustrating when they do occur, because they can cause boot loader failures of various sorts. (Given Ubuntu's EFI boot loader configuration, chances are the result would be a failure to boot at all, although I haven't actually observed this.)
Given the large size of modern disks, there's no point in being stingy; making the ESP 512MiB or larger is sensible. Note that I mean 512MiB, not 512MB. If you want to be safe against MiB-MB confusion, make it 550MiB. (That will also cover an increase in sector size to 8192 bytes, should such a thing happen any time soon.)
My current MAAS data:
$ dpkg -l '*maas*' | cat
Desired=
| Status=
|/ Err?=(none)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-===
ii maas 1.5+bzr2236-
ii maas-cli 1.5+bzr2236-
ii maas-cluster-
ii maas-common 1.5+bzr2236-
ii maas-dhcp 1.5+bzr2236-
ii maas-dns 1.5+bzr2236-
ii maas-region-
ii maas-region-
ii python-django-maas 1.5+bzr2236-
ii python-maas-client 1.5+bzr2236-
ii python-
Related branches
- curtin developers: Pending requested
-
Diff: 11 lines (+1/-1)1 file modifiedhelpers/common (+1/-1)
Changed in maas: | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in curtin: | |
status: | New → Confirmed |
assignee: | nobody → Blake Rouse (blake-rouse) |
Changed in maas: | |
assignee: | nobody → Blake Rouse (blake-rouse) |
importance: | Undecided → Critical |
Changed in curtin: | |
status: | Confirmed → In Progress |
Changed in maas: | |
status: | Triaged → In Progress |
Changed in maas: | |
status: | In Progress → Fix Released |
status: | Fix Released → Fix Committed |
Changed in curtin: | |
status: | In Progress → Fix Committed |
Changed in curtin: | |
importance: | Undecided → Critical |
Changed in curtin (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → Critical |
status: | New → In Progress |
no longer affects: | maas |
Changed in curtin (Ubuntu): | |
milestone: | none → ubuntu-14.04 |
Changed in curtin (Ubuntu): | |
status: | In Progress → Fix Released |
Changed in curtin: | |
status: | Fix Committed → Fix Released |