Re: `grub-install` failed on a partitionless fully luks encrypted 4TB HDD

[Hamid Nassiby]

As the subject says and I've mentioned in my first post, this disk is
partitionless. Anyway, there are people who successfully installed grub on
partitionless disks. For example please take a look at the following links:


   - grub on partitionless full disk LVM:

http://www.mailbrowse.com/gnu-help-grub/comments-758.html


   - Grub on a whole ext4 partitionlesss disk:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5162/how-to-install-
grub-to-a-whole-ext4-disk-without-partition-table


   - Install grub on a partitionless disk (Arch wiki):

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Install_to_partiti
on_or_partitionless_disk

   - grub on a partitionless btrfs disk:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Btrfs#Partitionless_Btrfs_disk

Therefore lack of a partition table by itself could not be the root of
problem, but not having enough space for grub installation! So before
solving the problem by eliminating the problem scenario, and regarding the
successful similar experiences mentioned above,  I would like to get
assured about the required space for grub installation at the disk
beginning, before luks header. I have asked Milan Broz about this, waiting
for his reply.

Please let me know more about your idea,

Regards,
Hamid


On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Andrei Borzenkov <address@hidden>
wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Hamid Nassiby <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Hi Andrei,
> >
> > The output of "fdisk -l /dev/sdb":
> >
> >> Disk /dev/sdb: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
> >> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> >> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
> >> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
> >>
> >
> > The output of "blkid":
> >
> >> /dev/mapper/wallet: UUID="$Luks" TYPE="LVM2_member"
> >> /dev/mapper/my_vg-root: LABEL="root" UUID="$root" UUID_SUB="$root_sub"
> >> TYPE="btrfs"
> >> /dev/sdb: UUID="$sdb" TYPE="crypto_LUKS"
>
> There is no place to install bootloader on this disk. Create partition
> to use as encrypted container, then you will be able to install
> bootloader. As you have 4TB disk, you need GPT, so you should
> additionally create BIOS boot partition where bootloader will be
> installed.
>