#544651 lvm2: lvm issues warnings about not finding volumes, on a system with LUKS encryption + lvm

Package:
lvm2
Source:
lvm2
Description:
Linux Logical Volume Manager
Submitter:
Giorgos Pallas
Date:
2018-12-31 00:21:07 UTC
Severity:
normal
#544651#5
Date:
2009-09-02 06:26:17 UTC
From:
To:
When booting, a debian system installed with the option LUKS encryption +
lvm, just before asking for the LUKS passphrase, it gives warnings about not
finding the volumes. It is not expected behaviour to try to find lvm
volumes, when those volumes are on an encrypted disk, before unlocking it...

Bug reproduction: Install debian selecting the (I don't remember how exactly
is it called) full disk encryption + lvm, and then boot it...

#544651#10
Date:
2010-06-25 11:54:21 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Giorgos.

Is this still an issue for you or can we close it?

Having a short glance at the initramfs-scripts, it seems that they're
called currently in the order (mdadm -> lvm -> dmcrypt -> mount root
fs) which should mean that the setup you've described should work.
However, I did not try to reproduce this with the Debian installer.

Of course the current (rather fixed) scheme of having (mdadm -> lvm ->
dmcrypt -> mount root fs) is not very powerful, but I guess this is
known by the respective maintainers.


Cheers,
Chris.
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#544651#15
Date:
2016-06-08 14:24:18 UTC
From:
To:
Ertuğrul Harman [2015-08-08 23:51:11+03] wrote:

Just another user here. This cosmetic bug has always been in Debian.
LVM inside encrypted partition causes those errors.

It seems that bugs #794971 and #544651 are the same.

I guess the error message can be removed just by removing one echo
command from file /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-top/lvm2.

#544651#20
Date:
2018-10-24 14:57:30 UTC
From:
To:
I can confirm the mentioned warnings about LVM volume groups on all my
Debian Stretch systems. Messages seems to be caused by the running order
of initramfs scripts in "/usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-*" -
"lvm2" script seems to be run before "cryptroot" script. This is caused
by lines 10 to 16 in
"/usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-*/cryptroot" - when scripts
run in a default alphabetic order ("cryptroot" then "lvm2") no warnings
seems appear.

Note that I made more modifications to my "lvm2" and especially
"cryptroot" initramfs scripts, so if somebody can confirm that just
changing the run order of default scripts is enough to avoid the
warnings about LVM volume groups it would be nice. Also note the
modified initramfs scripts should be in
"/etc/initramfs-tools/scripts/local-*" and you need to rebuild your
initramfs to test the changes.

When this is confirmed maybe the package for bugs 794971 and 544651
should be changed to "cryptsetup" instead of "lvm2"?

Regards
Bakhelit

#544651#25
Date:
2018-12-18 20:19:19 UTC
From:
To:
I was very much wanting to come over to the world of Debian, but this
guy's reply is a huge turn off. Sweeping a bug or hiding a "bug" isn't
fixing it... I just tried installing Debian 9.6 with Luks on LVM and
got similar error /warning message. I've been searching like crazy to
find proper guides (without graphical installer) on how to setup the
luks on lvm and most are foreign speaking people and can't understand
nothing. Then to find this shit in bug reports... come on man. Forget
Debian then, I'll use another linux distro where people actually fix
bugs, not sweep them under rug or hide them.

#544651#30
Date:
2018-12-18 20:39:59 UTC
From:
To:
For record, basically my message was this but this isn't MY message..
it's from another user with similar issue. Just in case someone on dev
team that actually cares about fixing known issues /bugs is set on
fixing it... not ones that hide/mask the bugs and claim they're fixed.
lol
https://www.debian-fr.org/t/warning-lors-du-demarrage-failed-to-connect-to-lvmetad/75575

WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad. Falling back to device
scanning. Volume group "compaqdebian-vg" not found Cannot process
volume group compaqdebian-vg WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad.
Falling back to device scanning. Volume group "compaqdebian-vg" not
found Cannot process volume group compaqdebian-vg

Ensuite le message suivant apparait :
Please unlock disk sda5_crypt:

#544651#35
Date:
2018-12-18 23:22:44 UTC
From:
To:
Went into console at partman part of minimal iso installer... did
fdisk and was setting everything up with fdisk and went to do command:
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda2 and oops, error... cryptsetup command
not found. Is there anything in debian that works for this stuff? lol
Or should I use gparted, or cfdisk, or something else?

#544651#40
Date:
2018-12-31 00:18:34 UTC
From:
To:
This warning, for a LUKS-encrypted system as configured by the Debian
installer, is spurious. The initrd assumes it should be looking for
lvmetad—it shouldn't be, but it doesn't realize that. The correct thing to
do here is not to remove the warning as Teemu Likonen suggested—if your
configuration requires lvmetad to be running and it isn't, you don't want
the initscripts to fail to inform you of the simple and obvious reason it's
not working. The Debian Way would be (and is—note Teemu's suggestion dates
to 2016 and the warning remains, as does this open bug report) to leave the
harmless warning alone since under a more complex LVM setup, it wouldn't be
harmless.

If you know you don't need lvmetad for your lvm setup (and for just basic
LUKS you don't), you teh internets say you can edit /etc/lvm/lvm.conf and
"use_lvmetad = 0", then rebuild your boot config (update-grub or whatever)
to disable trying to find it. In buster/sid, that's now already set and
there's a comment that the setting is now unused because lvmetad itself is
no longer used/provided in the Changelog.

As for cryptsetup not working from the installer, that's because cryptsetup
isn't installed in the installer environment. It's available as an "extra
module", a udeb package, installable from the main installer menu. Unless
you're using the advanced installer, you won't normally see that unless you
interrupt the "guided" process and go back. It can also be done by hand,
but that's honestly not well-documented and I don't recommend it to people
who post hate-filled screeds about how garbage something is because they
didn't bother to learn how it works first.

Assuming you didn't just decide that arch or something makes you more l33t
anyway, I'd recommend either using the live installer which provides a
proper userland rather than an ultra-limited barebones repair console, or
using the installer's menu system.

Joseph
Just a user who doesn't speak for Debian