Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2025 15:16:52 +0000 (GMT)
From: Mark Hills <mark@xwax.org>
To: Sertonix <sertonix@posteo.net>
cc: ~alpine/users@lists.alpinelinux.org
Subject: Re: Solutions for EFI booting / copying kernels
In-Reply-To: <86509949be4dc3a8b6cf9ae6482fdd97@posteo.de>
Message-ID: <5210eab8-eca6-67ed-dbac-668f8c0c8f00@xwax.org>
References: <8f3899df-71b7-6562-7688-7bebc6ac1f94@xwax.org> <D774PQ9SBXGN.2JIXM10VQVUNH@posteo.net> <37f7104c-96b0-7c19-a35a-081f879c71d6@xwax.org> <86509949be4dc3a8b6cf9ae6482fdd97@posteo.de>
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(useful reply; hope you don't mind me keeping this on-list for all)

On Sat, 25 Jan 2025, Sertonix wrote:

> On 2025-01-21 12:20, Mark Hills wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Jan 2025, Sertonix wrote:
> > 
> > > > I have a few Alpine systems which use EFI to boot with syslinux.
> > > >
> > > > I'd like to improve this setup.
> > > >
> > > > The kernel+initramfs are copied to /efi, where syslinux finds them.
> > > >
> > > > Invariably, after "apk upgrade" I forget to do this copy, resulting in a
> > > > system that won't boot.
> > [...]
> > > I think it should work if you mount the EFI partition at /boot instead
> > > of /efi. Then there isn't any copying needed.
> > 
> > I had assumed having /boot as some kind of DOS/VFAT filesystem would cause
> > trouble. It 'feels' very wrong, but I had assumed it would cause problem
> > with filenames & permissions managed by apk, disk checks and so on.
> > 
> > Is this a common practice?
> 
> I have used VFAT partitions for /boot without any issue.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

The web shows up some other posts from people allowing /boot to double as 
/efi.

What I dislike about such a proposal is VFAT lacks journaling and other 
robusness features compared to ext4, were this partition to fail a check 
on boot. That's more likely too; now that VFAT is used for a partition 
that changes on each kernel update.

> Mounting /boot as VFAT is as far as I know standard for BIOS boot setups 
> which alpine supports as well. So there shouldn't be any issues with 
> that.

My experience differs; I don't I or my employers have ever seen VFAT here.

Besides, historically LILO _required_ an ext partition to host the kernel 
(perhaps boot or /); SYSLINUX and GRUB are capable of the same.

I can't think of a reason (pre-EFI) that VFAT has ever been required as 
/boot?

Thanks

-- 
Mark