#1205 PR `merged`: Increase default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 100 to 200 to 400 to 512 to 1024 MiB¶

Labels: enhancement, fixed / solved / done

ProBackup-nl opened issue at 2017-02-22 22:27:¶

100 MiB is too low. My first attempt to "rear -v mkrescue" an 64-bit kernel 4.9.11 fails with:

ERROR: Could not copy /tmp/rear.2wwzvo4iQ1W4LLK/tmp/initrd.cgz to /tmp/rear-efi.0sRzW//EFI/BOOT/initrd.cgz
Aborting due to an error, check /root/rear/var/log/rear/rear-d2.log for details.

The default 100 MiB is not a sensible value for an EFI boot partition nowadays:

# ls -lh /tmp/rear-efi.0sRzW/EFI/BOOT/
total 100M
-rwx------ 1 root root  79K Feb 22 22:59 BOOTX64.efi
-rwx------ 1 root root  96M Feb 22 22:59 initrd.cgz
-rwx------ 1 root root 4.7M Feb 19 14:49 kernel

gozora commented at 2017-02-22 22:36:¶

Not sure if you are aware, but you can override any value from default.conf in /etc/rear/local.conf

ProBackup-nl commented at 2017-02-22 23:09:¶

I am aware that I can edit default.conf
I wasn't aware that I can/should override in /etc/rear/local.conf. Thanks for this.
Still I do think that in 2017 the default of 100MiB is too small for most users (not a sensible default value): Created initrd.cgz with gzip default compression (156865102 bytes)

jsmeix commented at 2017-02-23 09:35:¶

I think I will "simply merge" it because:
We are talking here about formatting of a mass storage device
and I think on nowadays mass storage devices it does not
really matter if a partition is 100MiB bigger.

Additionally a partition size value of 200 MiB
is in better compliance with
https://github.com/rear/rear/issues/1201
when we align a 8 MiB boundaries because
200/8=25 while in contrast 100/8=12.5

jsmeix commented at 2017-02-23 09:41:¶

@ProBackup-nl
FYI regarding

Created initrd.cgz with gzip default compression (156865102 bytes)

have a look at
https://github.com/rear/rear/issues/1142
and see REAR_INITRD_COMPRESSION in default.conf

ProBackup-nl commented at 2017-02-28 20:15:¶

Pulling is wise is think, as Ubuntu package "partman-efi package" recommends 200MiB as minimum and the expert Rod Smith recommends an ESP size to exceed 200 MiB.

jsmeix commented at 2018-10-26 08:41:¶

https://github.com/rear/rear/issues/1936#issuecomment-433331744
indicates that the current default of 200 MiB has again become too little
to make things work on nowadays usual systems.

@gozora @gdha
what do you think:
Should I increase the default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 200 to 400 MiB
or another multiple of 16 MiB (like 20 * 16 = 320) to be also more on the safe side
for a possibly duplicated USB_PARTITION_ALIGN_BLOCK_SIZE="16"
cf. https://github.com/rear/rear/pull/1205#issuecomment-281942241
and the current comments in default.conf.

jsmeix commented at 2018-10-26 08:53:¶

I think I will "simply increase"
the default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 200 to 400 MiB
because with

FIRMWARE_FILES=( 'yes' )
MODULES=( 'all_modules' )

I get a 313M ISO image which indicates that 400 MiB are not too much
to be reasonably on the safe side that things work with our defaults.

Furthermore 400 MiB are in compliance with
Fedora creates 500 MiB /boot partitions in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/partman-efi/+bug/811485/comments/4
cf. https://github.com/rear/rear/pull/1205#issuecomment-283149034

If there are no objections I would like to increase
the default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 200 to 400 MiB
today afternoon.

jsmeix commented at 2018-10-26 14:31:¶

https://github.com/rear/rear/commit/89e6a47c82fbfe8d059a4647755f94750fe28acc
increases the default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 200 to 400 MiB

jsmeix commented at 2022-03-16 10:02:¶

https://github.com/rear/rear/commit/c38e61db066196c90e6118cab8887b76df58b20a
increases the default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 400 to 512 MiB

jsmeix commented at 2022-03-21 11:16:¶

With https://github.com/rear/rear/pull/2774 merged
in default.conf USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE is increased to 1024 MiB
in particular to also make things work by default when additional
third-party kernel modules and firmware (e.g. from Nvidia) are used,
cf. https://github.com/rear/rear/issues/2770#issuecomment-1068935688

kazi-md-munam commented at 2022-10-18 04:55:¶

@jsmeix Thanks

[Export of Github issue for rear/rear.]

#1205 PR merged: Increase default USB_UEFI_PART_SIZE from 100 to 200 to 400 to 512 to 1024 MiB¶