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Slackware on lvm+luks - unavailable for unlocking

Hey, folks.
I've just installed Slackware according to this notes. My setup is elilo + full disk encryption (lvm on luks). What I did:
1. Created two partitions: 512M ESP Fat32 (/dev/sdb1) and 250G raw for LUKS (/dev/sdb2).
2. Created and opened luks.
3. Created physical, group and logical volumes (root, swap, home).
4. Installed Slackware and elilo with new efi record.
5. Without rebooting after installation was finished I chrooted and used

Code:

/usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh -a '-o /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/initrd.gz | tail -1 | sh

to create initrd.gz.
6. Checked if /boot/vmlinuz-generic-5.4.41 and /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/vmlinuz are the same.
7. Just in case copied /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/initrd.gz to /boot/initrd.gz

So my final config setup looks like this

Code:

cat /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/elilo.conf

chooser=simple

delay=1

timeout=1

#

image=vmlinuz

        label=vmlinuz

        initrd=initrd.gz

        read-only

        append="root=/dev/mapper/luksvg-root vga=normal ro"



ls -l /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware

elilo.conf  elilo.efi  initrd.gz  vmlinuz

Seems like everything is OK, but when I try to boot into installation
1. initrd.gz loads from /boot (not from /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware).
2. All modules loads without a problem (I see insmod /lib/modules/5.4.41/... on display).
3. Error

Code:

LUKS device /dev/sdb2 unavailable for unlocking!

...

No /sbin/init found on rootdev...

As far as I can tell this error caused by inability to decrypt /dev/sdb2 which is partition with luks+lvm.

My questions are:
1. Why loads /boot/initrd.gz when in elilo.conf I have initrd.gz not in /boot, but in elilo dir (/boot/efi/EFI/Slackware)?
2. Since initrd.gz in /boot and in /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware are the same and they have been created by mkinitrd_command_generator, why the problem with decryption appears?
3. How to fix it?

Is your LUKS device still called /dev/sdb2 when you are booting that computer?
If it is, did you perform a full installation of Slackware or did you skip packages?
To try whether cryptsetup in your initrd works, reboot, and then after getting the error message you will be dropped to a shell prompt. Type "cryptsetup" to see if that command is working at all, or whether it is missing any libraries.

Thanks for reply.
In emergency shell (let's call it this way) I executed

Code:

ls /dev

and did't found /dev/sdb. The only block device I found is /dev/sda which is my hdd (media storage) with no distributions installed.
No, I did not perform a full installation. I skipped kernel sources, KDE and XFCE packages.
Cryptsetup works in emergency shell.

Is that /dev/sdb an external USB drive? If so, it may be too slow to be recognized in time as a storage device.
The mkinitrd command has a "wait" parameter, for instance adding "-w 10" will cause the init process to wait 10 seconds which could be sufficient for the USB subsystem to recognize your disk. Like so:

Code:

/usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh -r -a '-w 10 -o /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware/initrd.gz' | sh

It's external sata ssd, that is connected via usb3. I've just tried to make initrd with your command, but it doesn't take any effect, except +10 seconds to boot time. I've tried 30 seconds as well - still no result.

If it matters, I've installed arch with lvm+luks on this devices exactly in the same manner. That time I didn't experience any problems.

Btw, even with -w 30 I don't see sdb device in /dev. It looks working (led is flashing). In UEFI I can see this disk. Actually, last time initrd.gz was loaded from a proper location - /boot/efi/EFI/Slackware, therefore sdb was recognized on boot.

There's also the possibility that your initrd does not have the modules to support USB storage. That would explain why you never see the device nodes appear.

Hmm... I unpluged ssd from box and connected it to m/b sata. It was identified as sdb, however, I still get this error when I try to boot.

Does anybody have experience with installing Slackware on lvm+luks? Does it work?

Two more unsuccessful attempts to install Slackware on lvm+luks. This time I've tried to install on sata ssd and m2 ssd. Both times I get exactly the same error but with different partitions. Looks like notes I mentioned doesn't cover some necessary step or Slackware (at least current) doesn't support working from encrypted device.

Luks and LVM works fine here.
However, I use lilo and a manually created initrd.

My mkinitrd command looks like this:

Code:

mkinitrd -c -k 5.4.42 -f ext2,ext4 -r /dev/cryptvg/root -C /dev/sda2 -L -d de

/etc/lilo.conf looks like this:

Code:

append=" vt.default_utf8=0"

boot = /dev/sda

bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp

bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0

bmp-table = 60,6,1,16

bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255

prompt

timeout = 100

change-rules

  reset

vga=normal



image = /boot/vmlinuz

  initrd = /boot/initrd.gz

  root = /dev/cryptvg/root

  label = Linux

  read-only



image = /boot/vmlinuz-rescue

  initrd = /boot/initrd-rescue.gz

  root = /dev/cryptvg/root

  label = Rescue

  append = " single"

  read-only

Quote:

Originally Posted by keeneadt (Post 6126711)

Does anybody have experience with installing Slackware on lvm+luks? Does it work?

I've been using luks+lvm for years now (with Slackware64-current and Slackware64-14.2 and in one case Slackware-14.2).

Don't know what to say. Could be an issue of current iso I used. Will try with another one later.

The error you get is generated when "cryptsetup isLuks /dev/sdb2" returns false. I.e. your disk partition is not recognized as a LUKS volume.
Did you do something out of the ordinary when formatting /dev/sdb2 as a LUKS volume?

Edit - well if your /dev/sdb is not visible at all, my remark is irrelevant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob (Post 6126776)

Did you do something out of the ordinary when formatting /dev/sda2 as a LUKS volume?

It's /dev/sdb in my case. No, nothing out of what is written in the notes.

Code:

boot

> root



cfdisk /dev/sdb

gpt

/dev/sdb1 ESP 512M

/dev/sdb2 Linux filesystem 250G



cryptsetup -s 512 -y luksFormat /dev/sdb2

cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 luksslack0



pvcreate /dev/mapper/luksslack0

vgcreate luksvg0 /dev/mapper/luksslack0

lvcreate -L 8G -n swap luksvg0

lvcreate -L 40G -n root luksvg0

lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n home luksvg0



mkswap /dev/luksvg0/swap



setup

The rest I've already described.