Arch Linux

ssean

Member

Registered: 2019-09-16

Posts: 18

[SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Hello everyone. I'm stuck.. any help would be appreciated.

I'm trying to use a bind mount to install systemd-boot to the following directory: esp/EFI/arch

The wiki states the following:

1. Instead of mounting the ESP itself to /boot, you can mount a directory of the ESP to /boot using a bind mount (see mount(8)). This allows pacman to update the kernel directly while keeping the ESP organized to your liking.

2. Just like in #Alternative mount points, copy all boot files to a directory on your ESP, but mount the ESP outside /boot. Then bind mount the directory:

# mount --bind esp/EFI/arch /boot

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EF … bind_mount

When doing a fresh install from a live USB, what would be the best way to accomplish this?

I tried the following, which is obviously not working.

mkdir -p /mnt/dev/sda1/EFI/Arch
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount --bind /mnt/dev/sda1/EFI/Arch /mnt/boot
bootctl --path=/boot install

Do I need to install using the normal recommendation of mounting the ESP to /boot?

mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
bootctl --path=/boot install

Then after the system is installed, go back and copy the files over to esp/EFI/Arch and create the bind mount?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by ssean (2019-09-24 13:51:48)

Swiggles

Member

Registered: 2014-08-02

Posts: 266

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

On installation, assuming root is mounted to /mnt and sda1 is your efi partition:

mkdir /mnt/efi /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi
mkdir -p /mnt/efi/EFI/arch
mount --bind /mnt/efi/EFI/arch /mnt/boot
bootctl --path /mnt/efi install

As a general advice do not create, touch or do anything with /mnt/dev (and /dev to some extend) except mounting from it, it will be used later for devices. There are exceptions most people never in their life worry about, but not here.

Last edited by Swiggles (2019-09-19 19:55:01)

ssean

Member

Registered: 2019-09-16

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Thanks for the help Swiggles. In regards to the code you provided above:

Instead of using

bootctl --path /mnt/efi install

Could I use

bootctl --path /mnt/boot install

to keep the kernels out of the base directory of my ESP?

Or will that cause issues?

Thanks again.

Last edited by ssean (2019-09-20 12:14:41)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,076

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

bootctl has no relation to your kernel images. and you probably only want it once and not multiple times? Or do you intend to install systemd-boot for every distinct system ? And if so why? I'd understand wanting to keep kernel images separate but why systemd-boot?

Swiggles

Member

Registered: 2014-08-02

Posts: 266

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Could I use

bootctl --path /mnt/boot install

to keep the kernels out of the base directory of my ESP?

Or will that cause issues?

It won't work, so I would call it an issue.

What V1del says is correct and the whole purpose of this exercise is to keep the efi root folder organized. There is no technical reason for this as stated in the wiki.

ssean

Member

Registered: 2019-09-16

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Understood. After installing and seeing the file hierarchy, it makes sense now.

I have one last issue to resolve and I think I'm good here.

systemd-boot installed successfully to /efi and also starts successfully upon reboot.

I'm now running into the issue of:

Error loading \vmlinuz-linux: Not found
Failed to execute Arch Linux (\vmlinuz-linux): Not found

This is what my bootloader entry looks like:

/efi/loader/entries/arch.conf

title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=ac5f8077-8e66-4f7e-bb0a-00c2b9dd2dba:vg0 resume=/dev/mapper/vg0-swap root=/dev/mapper/vg0-root quiet rw

What am I missing here?

Last edited by ssean (2019-09-20 17:10:13)

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,620

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Please don't post pictures of text, post the actual text in code tags: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … s_and_code

What you are missing is that the linux and initrd paths are absolute paths starting from the ESP root, e.g. assuming you set up the mount as suggested in post #2, / from the POV of systemd-boot is /mnt/efi/ from your perspective.

---

Sakura:-
Mobo: MSI MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX // Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @4.9GHz // GFX: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT // RAM: 32GB (4x 8GB) Corsair DDR4 (@ 3000MHz) // Storage: 1x 3TB HDD, 6x 1TB SSD, 2x 120GB SSD, 1x 275GB M2 SSD

Making lemonade from lemons since 2015.

ssean

Member

Registered: 2019-09-16

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Please don't post pictures of text, post the actual text in code tags: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … s_and_code

What you are missing is that the linux and initrd paths are absolute paths starting from the ESP root, e.g. assuming you set up the mount as suggested in post #2, / from the POV of systemd-boot is /mnt/efi/ from your perspective.

Sorry about the images, and thank you for the quick response.

This fixed it! Thanks!

title Arch Linux
linux /EFI/Arch/vmlinuz-linux
initrd /EFI/Arch/initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=ac5f8077-8e66-4f7e-bb0a-00c2b9dd2dba:vg0 resume=/dev/mapper/vg0-swap root=/dev/mapper/vg0-root quiet rw  

Last edited by ssean (2019-09-20 17:08:06)

ssean

Member

Registered: 2019-09-16

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

To follow up on the above:

The system boots without issues, but I cannot seem to mount /boot.

lsblk

returns the following:

NAME            MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT  
nvme0n1         259:0    0 931.5G  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1     259:1    0   499M  0 part  
├─nvme0n1p2     259:2    0   100M  0 part  /efi
├─nvme0n1p3     259:3    0    16M  0 part  
├─nvme0n1p4     259:4    0 530.9G  0 part  
└─nvme0n1p5     259:5    0   400G  0 part  
  └─arch        254:0    0   400G  0 crypt 
    ├─arch-swap 254:1    0     8G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
    └─arch-root 254:2    0   392G  0 lvm   /

Do I need to make changes to fstab?

# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=BB20-1291          /efi            vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro       0 2

# /mnt/efi/EFI/Arch
/mnt/efi/EFI/Arch       /boot           none            rw,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro,bind   0 0

Should I remove the /mnt?

For example:

# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=BB20-1291          /efi            vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro       0 2

# /efi/EFI/Arch
/efi/EFI/Arch       /boot           none            rw,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro,bind   0 0

Or reference the disk directly?

For example:

# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=BB20-1291          /efi            vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro       0 2

# /dev/nvme0n1p2/efi/EFI/Arch
/dev/nvme0n1p2/efi/EFI/Arch       /boot           none            rw,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro,bind   0 0

Last edited by ssean (2019-09-24 13:06:23)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,076

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Yes you need to remove the mnt that was only necessary while the root partition was mounted on your live disk.  You need to reference your mount point, so /efi and you also don't need to relist your options. See

  Bind mount operation
       Remount part of the file hierarchy somewhere else.  The call is:

              mount --bind olddir newdir

       or by using this fstab entry:

              /olddir /newdir none bind

so your entry should be

/efi/EFI/Arch       /boot           none            bind         0    0

Last edited by V1del (2019-09-24 13:36:12)

ssean

Member

Registered: 2019-09-16

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Need help using systemd-boot bind mount on fresh install

Yes you need to remove the mnt that was only necessary while the root partition was mounted on your live disk.  You need to reference your mount point, so /efi and you also don't need to relist your options. See

  Bind mount operation
       Remount part of the file hierarchy somewhere else.  The call is:

              mount --bind olddir newdir

       or by using this fstab entry:

              /olddir /newdir none bind

so your entry should be

/efi/EFI/Arch       /boot           none            bind         0    0

That solved it! Thank you very much. I appreciate it.