F35 Change: Support using a GPT partition table in Kickstart (System-Wide Change proposal)

[Ben Cotton]

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/InstallGPTwithKickstart


== Summary ==
Add support for configuring GPT partition table in kickstart without
requiring a custom pre-installation script or a custom boot script.
[[Category:SystemWideChange]]


== Owners ==
* Name: [[User:Davdunc|David Duncan]], [[User:Chrismurphy|Chris
Murphy]], [[User:Salimma|Michel Alexandre Salim]],
[[User:Dcavalca|Davide Cavalca]], [[User:Ngompa|Neal Gompa]],
[[User:Dustymabe|Dusty Mabe]]
* Email: davdunc(a)amazon.com, chrismurphy(a)fedoraproject.org,
michel(a)michel-slm.name, dcavalca(a)fb.com, ngompa13(a)gmail.com,
dusty(a)dustymabe.com
* Products: Fedora Cloud Edition
* Responsible WGs: Fedora Cloud WG


== Detailed Description ==
Fedora Cloud Edition wants to use a GPT partition table; however, it
is not possible
to force the creation of an image with the GPT partition table with
our current tooling
because Anaconda requires setting <code>inst.gpt</code> as a kernel
boot parameter
to do it. This Change proposes to add a way to declare this via kickstart so
that the Cloud Edition image builds can create images using the GPT
partition table
using the current tooling (which is built on Anaconda).


== Benefit to Fedora ==
Users will be able to install systems with a GPT partition table via
kickstart without
requiring an extensive custom pre-installation script or a custom boot
script. Disk images
produced using the Anaconda tooling (Oz/ImageFactory, Lorax) can also
trivially make
images with GPT partition tables. This makes it possible to create
hybrid BIOS+UEFI boot
images, given [[Changes/UnifyGrubConfig|the changes to GRUB
configuration from Fedora Linux 34]].

== Scope ==
* Proposal Owners
** Review and discuss with the Anaconda maintainers and determine the
next steps for support of the inst.gpt in pykickstart
** Work with Anaconda maintainers to implement in Anaconda
* Release engineering: [https://pagure.io/releng/issue/10137 #10137]
* Policies and guidelines: N/A
* Trademark approval: N/A

== How to test ==
Build images using virt-install with kickstarts that have the option
set. Verify that the disk partition table is properly configured as
GPT. Verify that without the option set, it uses legacy MBR.

== User Experience ==
* Allows for the use of the standard pykickstart directive for
specifying the preference for GPT partition.

== Dependencies ==
* Anaconda
[https://anaconda-installer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/boot-options.html#ins...
inst.gpt]


-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis

[Brian C. Lane]

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 11:38:56AM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/InstallGPTwithKickstart
>  
>  
>  == Summary ==
>  Add support for configuring GPT partition table in kickstart without
>  requiring a custom pre-installation script or a custom boot script.
>  [[Category:SystemWideChange]] 
Doesn't 'clearpart --disklabel gpt' work? It should. IIRC at the time it
was added we didn't make GPT the default because some BIOS systems were
confused by it and refused to boot.

https://pykickstart.readthedocs.io/en/latest/kickstart-docs.html#clearpart

Brian

-- 
Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT) - weldr.io - lorax - parted - pykickstart

[Chris Murphy]

On Thu, May 27, 2021, 10:28 AM Brian C. Lane <bcl(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 11:38:56AM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/InstallGPTwithKickstart
>  >
>  >
>  > == Summary ==
>  > Add support for configuring GPT partition table in kickstart without
>  > requiring a custom pre-installation script or a custom boot script.
>  > [[Category:SystemWideChange]]
>
>  Doesn't 'clearpart --disklabel gpt' work? 
It should. IIRC at the time it
>  was added we didn't make GPT the default because some BIOS
> systems were
>  confused by it and refused to boot.
>
>  https://pykickstart.readthedocs.io/en/latest/kickstart-docs.html#clearpart 

I don't know why we all missed it. Butt that appears to be the case.

However, the end goal is to create hybrid BIOS+UEFI cloud images via
kickstart.  (Maybe down the road it could be generally useful, if/when the
existing bootloader UI bits go away.)

I'll start a new thread on anaconda-devel@ about that.

--
Chris Murphy



>  Brian
>
>  --
>  Brian C. Lane (PST8PDT) - weldr.io - lorax - parted - pykickstart
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[Gerd Hoffmann]

  Hi,

>  I don't know why we all missed it. Butt that appears to be the
> case.
>  
>  However, the end goal is to create hybrid BIOS+UEFI cloud images via
>  kickstart.  (Maybe down the road it could be generally useful, if/when the
>  existing bootloader UI bits go away.) 
https://git.kraxel.org/cgit/imagefish/tree/kickstart/el8.ks

(for rhel8/centos8, probably wouldn't work as-is in f34+ because
the unified grub feature changed the grub cfg file arrangements).

take care,
  Gerd

[Chris Murphy]

On Fri, May 28, 2021 at 12:37 AM Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>    Hi,
>
>  > I don't know why we all missed it. Butt that appears to be the case.
>  >
>  > However, the end goal is to create hybrid BIOS+UEFI cloud images via
>  > kickstart.  (Maybe down the road it could be generally useful, if/when the
>  > existing bootloader UI bits go away.)
>
>  https://git.kraxel.org/cgit/imagefish/tree/kickstart/el8.ks
>
>  (for rhel8/centos8, probably wouldn't work as-is in f34+ because
>  the unified grub feature changed the grub cfg file arrangements).
>  
That does look like what we're after. Thanks!


-- 
Chris Murphy

[Richard W.M. Jones]

FWIW virt-builder uses:

zerombr
clearpart --all --initlabel --disklabel=gpt
autopart --type=plain

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
libguestfs lets you edit virtual machines.  Supports shell scripting,
bindings from many languages.  http://libguestfs.org

[Ben Cotton]

On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 11:38 AM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/InstallGPTwithKickstart
>  
This proposal has been withdrawn by the owner.


-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis