Help wanted - boot and efi partition misconfiguration

Jade1 · 26 September 2021 04:15

Hi,

I’ve managed to get myself in a bit of a pickle and not quite sure how to get myself out! I think I’ve made a mess of my /boot partition. I’m not dual booting so think I should have /boot/efi but it seems I only have /efi. How can I get myself out of this mess?

I was trying to upgrade my system and saw that I couldn’t because the error message I got said I didn’t have enough space on my boot partition. I did initially think of trying to expand my boot partition but I have 766M assigned and really that should be enough so I thought I should try and get to the bottom of why I’m maxed out on my boot partition.

So I had a look at usage on my boot partition and noticed that I only see an efi partition which was indeed maxed out

df -h

filesystem                            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                               16G     0   16G   0% /dev
tmpfs                                  16G  9.2M   16G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                 6.3G   11M  6.3G   1% /run
/dev/mapper/vg02-lvol--root            98G   39G   55G  42% /
tmpfs                                  16G   52M   16G   1% /tmp
/dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--install_discs   49G   53M   47G   1% /installDiscs
/dev/mapper/vg02-lvol--home           9.8G  263M  9.1G   3% /home
/dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--libvirt         99G   68G   27G  73% /var/lib/libvirt
/dev/mapper/luks_corporate             40G  3.3G   34G   9% /corporate
/dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--lxd             49G   25G   22G  54% /var/lib/lxd
/dev/mapper/luks_john                  49G   20G   27G  43% /home/john
/dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--downloads       49G   42G  5.0G  90% /home/john/Downloads
/dev/loop7                            163M  163M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-28-1804/145
/dev/loop0                            242M  242M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-38-2004/70
/dev/loop6                             66M   66M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gtk-common-themes/1519
/dev/loop8                             66M   66M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gtk-common-themes/1515
/dev/loop2                            128K  128K     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/bare/5
/dev/loop4                             33M   33M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/snapd/13170
/dev/loop1                             33M   33M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/snapd/12883
/dev/loop3                            243M  243M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-38-2004/76
/dev/loop5                            165M  165M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-28-1804/161
/dev/loop9                             56M   56M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/core18/2074
/dev/loop10                            56M   56M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/core18/2128
/dev/loop11                            62M   62M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/core20/1081
/dev/loop12                            65M   65M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/apple-music-for-linux/38
/dev/loop13                           168M  168M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/alfacast/22
/dev/loop14                           166M  166M     0 100% /var/lib/snapd/snap/alfacast/20
tmpfs                                 100K     0  100K   0% /var/lib/lxd/shmounts
tmpfs                                 100K     0  100K   0% /var/lib/lxd/devlxd
default/containers/docker2             18G   14G  3.9G  78% /var/lib/lxd/storage-pools/default/containers/docker2
tmpfs                                 3.2G  2.5M  3.2G   1% /run/user/1002
/dev/sda3                             1.6T  259G  1.3T  18% /run/media/john/linux
/dev/sda2                             500G  3.0G  498G   1% /run/media/john/Seagate Backup Plus Drive
/dev/nvme1n1p1                        766M  766M     0 100% /efi

So I started to look at what I had in boot and efi partitions and started to go down a rabbit hole…

Contents of my boot and efi are shown below

ls -l /boot

-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm     40960 Jul 19 15:16 amd-ucode.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm 105872363 Aug  6 22:36 initramfs-5.10-x86_64-fallback.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm  86235522 Aug  6 22:35 initramfs-5.10-x86_64.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm 110290772 Aug  6 22:36 initramfs-5.13-x86_64-fallback.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm  87201254 Aug  6 22:36 initramfs-5.13-x86_64.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm   4769792 Jun  8 14:31 intel-ucode.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm        22 Jul 26 03:17 linux510-x86_64.kver
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm        21 Jul 26 03:42 linux513-x86_64.kver
drwxrwxr-x 2 root adm      4096 Jul 16 18:14 memtest86+
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm   9386432 Aug  6 22:35 vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm   9679904 Aug  6 22:35 vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64

ls -l /efi

-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm     40960 Dec 18  2020 amd-ucode.img
drwxrwxr-x 5 root adm      4096 Jan  3  2021 EFI
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm 105832940 Aug  6 23:00 initramfs-5.10-x86_64-fallback.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm  86169591 Aug  6 23:00 initramfs-5.10-x86_64.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm  86626304 Aug  6 23:01 initramfs-5.13-x86_64-fallback.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm  87189235 Aug  6 23:00 initramfs-5.13-x86_64.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm   3621888 Nov 19  2020 intel-ucode.img
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm        22 Jul 11 08:58 linux510-x86_64.kver
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm        21 Jul 26 03:42 linux513-x86_64.kver
drwxrwxr-x 3 root adm      4096 Sep 23 23:51 loader
drwxrwxr-x 3 root adm      4096 Aug  6 22:36 Manjaro
drwxrwxr-x 2 root adm      4096 Jan  3  2021 memtest86+
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm   9412768 Jul 17 23:33 vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root adm   9679904 Aug  6 22:35 vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64

In my fstab, I’ve only got /boot listed:

cat /etc/fstab

# /dev/mapper/vg02-lvol--root
UUID=c4cf79bc-b324-4058-83ba-bead81dc6c08       /               ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--libvirt
UUID=70520927-21c9-4c47-b757-7da9d86eeaad       /var/lib/libvirt        ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--install_discs
UUID=eca67b5d-4a59-406d-a345-700f5173dfcf       /installDiscs   ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--downloads
UUID=f05a9155-2569-4c9a-872e-31db430f9ec6       /home/john/Downloads    ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/vg01-lvol--lxd
UUID=ff677908-74ca-4e2f-b710-ddfe59ab3af1       /var/lib/lxd    ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/vg02-lvol--home
UUID=b8e1a944-091a-44f6-9939-b2182746446a       /home           ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/crypt-john
#UUID=ac03e403-b9d6-444d-9d6c-712caf669cf4      /home/john      ext4            rw,noatime      0 0
/dev/mapper/luks_john   /home/john      ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/mapper/crypt-corporate
#UUID=7700b80e-e87f-49b8-89f7-a249e884bcfe      /corporate      ext4            rw,noatime      0 0
/dev/mapper/luks_corporate      /corporate      ext4            rw,noatime      0 0

# /dev/nvme1n1p1
UUID=569C-041A          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro       0 0

# /dev/mapper/crypt-swap
#UUID=c59f0bd6-bb07-4dde-82bf-259b1fc8580f      none            swap            defaults,pri=-2 0 0
/dev/mapper/luks_swap   none            swap            defaults,pri=-2 0 0

cat /efi/loader/entries/manjarolinux5.13.conf

title   Manjaro Linux 5.13
linux   /Manjaro/vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64
initrd  /amd-ucode.img
initrd  /intel-ucode.img
initrd  /Manjaro/amd-ucode.img
initrd  /Manjaro/intel-ucode.img
initrd  /initramfs-5.13-x86_64.img
options root=UUID=c4cf79bc-b324-4058-83ba-bead81dc6c08 rw

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0                  
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B11EC886-95B2-4AE1-9DF9-B5AEC67C34F5

Device         Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1  2048 1953525134 1953523087 931.5G Linux LVM

Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB                 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 94D60797-87CB-47FE-BF5C-C993FEA15C0C

Device           Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1    2048    1572864    1570817   767M EFI System
/dev/nvme1n1p2 1574912 1953525134 1951950223 930.8G Linux LVM

Any help or tips on how I might be able to fix this would be very much appreciated.

megavolt · 26 September 2021 04:43

Hello @Jade1

When pasting terminal output, add three backticks ` OR 3 tilde ~ above and below the text:

text

I did it this time for you. Please do it like this in the future.

Thank you

About your problem…

/boot seems not to be the problem, since it is on

And have enough space. Since you use use systemd-boot, these files are useless now.

It seems you have doubled images on /efi…
If /efi/Manjaro is the correct place, where the images are generated and not /efi, then you can remove the images there set the entry as follow:

title   Manjaro Linux 5.13
linux   /Manjaro/vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64
initrd  /Manjaro/amd-ucode.img
initrd  /Manjaro/intel-ucode.img
initrd  /Manjaro/initramfs-5.13-x86_64.img
options root=UUID=c4cf79bc-b324-4058-83ba-bead81dc6c08 rw

or if /efi/Manjaro is the wrong place, then this:

title   Manjaro Linux 5.13
linux   /vmlinuz-5.13-x86_64
initrd  /amd-ucode.img
initrd  /intel-ucode.img
initrd  /initramfs-5.13-x86_64.img
options root=UUID=c4cf79bc-b324-4058-83ba-bead81dc6c08 rw

and remove /efi/Manjaro.

I am not using systemd-boot on Manjaro, but on ArchLinux I have it like that:

LANG=C ls -lah
total 276M
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4.0K Jan  1  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root  272 Jul 29 12:23 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Aug  3 13:09 7d150695383047299f4e18048a12a3a0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4.0K Aug  3 13:09 EFI
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  40K Aug 18 11:21 amd-ucode.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  78M Sep 11 17:51 initramfs-linux-fallback.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  73M Sep 11 11:18 initramfs-linux-lts-fallback.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  54M Sep 11 11:18 initramfs-linux-lts.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  55M Sep 11 17:51 initramfs-linux.img
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Aug  3 13:20 loader
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9.3M Sep 11 11:18 vmlinuz-linux
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8.9M Sep 11 11:18 vmlinuz-linux-lts

$ cat loader/entries/arch.conf
title   Arch Linux
linux   /vmlinuz-linux
initrd  /amd-ucode.img
initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
options root=LABEL=ROOT_ARCH quiet loglevel=0 amd_iommu=on iommu=pt vfio-pci.ids=1002:9904 lsm=landlock,lockdown,yama,apparmor,bpf

and I use /boot as mountpoint for my efi partition. So everything, what is need for boot is on that disk.

Jade1 · 27 September 2021 03:44

Thanks @megavolt for the comprehensive answer.

That solved my issue precisely.

Regarding the 3 backticks, those did automatically appear but I deleted them thinking that they were unnecessary!

Thanks again.

aafsmarak · 27 September 2021 03:59

Pls mark his answer as the solution if it solved your issue.

system · 29 September 2021 18:00

This topic was automatically closed 2 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.