[systemd-devel] gummiboot can't be installed on ESP which is soft RAID1 metadata=0.9 partition

[Francis Moreau]

On 04/14/2014 08:11 PM, Thomas Bächler wrote:
> Am 14.04.2014 18:16, schrieb Lennart Poettering:
>> On Mon, 14.04.14 18:01, Francis Moreau (francis.moro at gmail.com) wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> "gummiboot install" fails when ESP is MD RAID1 device using metadata 0.9
>>> or 1.0.
>>>
>>> I don't think using such RAID for ESP would lead to issue.
>>>
>>> Is there any reason gummiboot doesn't want to be installed on such
>>> partition ?
>>
>> The installer will make sure that the ESP is on GPT and carries the right
>> type UUID. We do that for safety reasons, since that's the requirement
>> made by UEFI, and how the bootloader is found.
>>
>> You cannot place the ESP on sw RAID, since the firmware might want to
>> write to the ESP (most won't do that, but could, and the tianocore
>> implemenation you use in qemu certainly does). 
> 
> While this is unsafe, the firmware doesn't write to the ESP during
> normal operation (i.e. bootup and efivar configuration).
> 

Unfortunately it seesms that nothing in UEFI will prevent futur firmares
to change that.

Actually adding a flag somehow to instruct the firmware that ESP is a
read only partition would do the trick.

Thanks