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#1 2021-06-09 15:01:57

the.fatal.error
Member
Registered: 2021-06-09
Posts: 3

CryptLvm Boot process botched after system update

Hello all,

I've not been using my Arch installation for 3 months. Did a "pacman -Syu" yesterday and rebooted, now my system does not boot anymore.

Setup:
* The internal SSD only contains one large LUKS-encrypted LVM partition. 3 logical volumes exist: root, home and swap
* /boot partition resides on an external USB stick. The partition also holds a LUKS key and detached header for the encrypted LVM partition.
* This setup worked fine for about a year now.

After the update I cannot boot anymore, I also do not get a fallback shell because "the root account is locked". If I attempt to boot the fallback image the PC simply powers down.
I still have access to the encrypted LVM when I boot a linux live CD, I can chroot to the system. However, as the boot does fail at such an early stage I do not have access to any startup logs. I resorted to photographing my screen, please find the attached startup logs here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J2rEcd … sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G5aYqH … sp=sharing

I have to admit I'm a bit at a loss here, I have no clue what goes wrong and why, so any help is appreciated!

BR

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#2 2021-06-09 15:51:13

okubax
Member
From: Kent, UK.
Registered: 2010-04-24
Posts: 210
Website

Re: CryptLvm Boot process botched after system update

You mentioned you can chroot into the system, can you try rebuilding your initramfs image?

also show the contents of your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file

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#3 2021-06-09 15:55:11

the.fatal.error
Member
Registered: 2021-06-09
Posts: 3

Re: CryptLvm Boot process botched after system update

okubax wrote:

You mentioned you can chroot into the system, can you try rebuilding your initramfs image?

also show the contents of your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file

Thanks for the response!

Yes, I can rebuild the image. In fact I tried that because I saw that the default kernel image compression mechanism changed from "gzip" to "zstd". Rebuilding the image did not change anything though. I will post the contents of mkinitcpio.conf as soon as I get home.

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#4 2021-06-10 05:42:06

the.fatal.error
Member
Registered: 2021-06-09
Posts: 3

Re: CryptLvm Boot process botched after system update

Contents of /etc/mkinitcpio.conf - comments removed for readability:

MODULES=()

BINARIES=()

FILES=(/boot/header.img /boot/key.img)

HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect keyboard sd-vconsole modconf block sd-encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)

COMPRESSION="gzip"

Explanation: "FILES" lists the detached LUKS header and LUKS key file. "HOOKS" contains the "sd-encrypt" hook to encrypt the LVM partition. "COMPRESSION" was set explicitly by me in order to try to get it running with the previous compression method, but it does not work - neither with the new standard "zstd" nor with "gzip".

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