In the "Partition disks" step, using the "Manual" partitioning method,
I cannot configure encrypted volumes.

I create a partition, for use as a physical volume for encryption.
When I try to "Configure encrypted volumes", I get the error screen
"Unsafe swap space detected" and cannot proceed.

The error screen suggests running swapoff.  I press Alt-F2 RET and
type "swapoff -a" to the shell there; it does not help.  (But it
should, yes?  Is this another bug?)

I have a second disk with an independent installation of Debian on it.
From looking at /proc/swaps, it appears that the installer saw a swap
partition there and is using it.  I didn't ask it to.

After I create the partition and select "Configure encrypted volumes",
the partitioner gives me a screen saying, "Before encrypted volumes
can be configured, the current partitioning scheme has to be written
to disk....  The following partitions are going to be formatted:"
And the offered partition is the swap on the other disk!  This seems
wrong, as I haven't touched the other disk.  It is when I say "Yes"
to this step that the swap space gets added, making the next step fail.

What does work is "swapoff /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5".
This seems considerably harder to figure out than "swapoff -a".

It also works to, in the partitioner, edit the swap partition on the
other disk and set its "Use as" field to "do not use".  It took me a
while to figure this out, and I feel this step should not be
necessary.

If I select "Guided partitioning" and ask for "Guided - encrypted LVM",
it works fine.  Somehow this method gets rid of the unwanted swap
device.

 < Stephen

reassign 414309 partman-crypto
thanks

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your bug report.

Sounds like another bug. The normal swapoff in util-linux looks at
/proc/swaps when called with -a and deconfigures all swap devices
listed therein. I'll need to check what busybox swapoff does.
automatically configure existing swap partitions on the system,
but I agree that it should be easier to handle.

What we could try: Find out how much normal memory is available
and whether the system really needs the swap space, then, if
possible, offer to deconfigure the swap partitions automatically.
This change is too big to happen before etch is released, but
definitely something I'll look at afterwards.

If the above should turn out to be impossible or too much work,
I'll try to improve the error template to mention that one can set
the "Use as" field rather than switch to a different VT and use
swapoff to deconfigure it manually. (This is post-etch as well)

I would guess that this is because guided partitioning doesn't
try to automatically setup existing swap partitions, but I'm not
sure about that.

cheers,
Max

Hi,

I had the same issue today, while trying to install testing.  But my case
is slightly more confusing since I did *not* have any swap partition shown
in /proc/swaps (I restarted the install from scratch and checked in the
alt+F2 console before and after launching the partition manager).

As mentionned in bug #396138 (merged with this one), the only way has been
to set my swap partition to "Use as: Do not use" in the partitioner.
Automatic partitionning yielded the same result, and my disk was a new,
unpartitionned SSD.

I do not understand what is going on.  I already used the automatic
(and even manual) partman-crypt in the past and never faced such an issue.
the past featuring an encrypted swap partition.  The fact that it
(sometimes) does not work looks like a random bug, not an absolute
impossibility.

Then again, swapoff did not solve the issue in my case.  Somehow, the
installer seems to think that, because I want to configure a swap
partition, a swap partition is already setup and might leak my passphrase
(which is not the case, and anyway this is supposed to be an encrypted swap
so WTF?).

Best regards,