• Created: 2005-11-02 by FabioMassimoDiNitto

• Priority: MediumPriority

• Packages: partman-auto-lvm, partman-auto

Note for Reviewers

The main implementation is already in breezy. This spec is to recollect the bits that needs to be polished/tested in Dapper. For all the rationale and cosmetic bits please see InstallerVolumeManagement (that are not up for discussion since already approved at UDU).

Rationale

partman-auto-lvm could not be enabled on breezy powerpc because parted upstream did not support lvm.

Implementation Plan

• Import new upstream version from Debian that is our version plus extra bug fixing.

• As discussed on debian-boot mailing list, patch partman-auto recipes to tag partitions that can or cannot be on lvm volumes. (http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2005/10/msg00842.html)

• Modify partman-auto-lvm (pal from now on) to parse the new recipes tag (as discussed at the above URL), that as a consequence will increase portability across architectures.
• Remove size calculation hack that was added in breezy (as discussed on debian-boot mailing list same url as above. Note that the comments are inside the patch and the actual code in breezy/dapper - See:

# expand_scheme can't cope with decimal and lvm overhead.
# lvm overhead gets calculated properly only using kbytes.
# Switch to that. The worst scenario is that the last partition will be one PE smaller,
# but in the big numbers it's nothing (4MB).
free_size=$(vgs -o vg_free --units k --noheading --nosuffix $VG_name | sed -e 's/\..*//g')

newscheme=''
foreach_partition '
        newmin="${1}000"
        newmed="${2}000"
        if [ "$3" != "1000000000" ]; then
           newmax="${3}000"
        else
           newmax="$3"
        fi

in perform_recipe_by_lvm file)

• Enable pal (partman-auto-lvm) on ppc.
• Test all of the above.
• profit. Estimated working time from 3 to 8 days.
• Retest possible GUI implementation since in the last round of tests they were not stable enough to be considered for inclusion.

Packages Affected

• partman-auto-lvm

• partman-auto

• probably more

Outstanding Issues

• We were offering the option to use all the freespace on all devices to create lvm volumes. This option was too buggy and removed from upstream.