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List:       fedora-devel-list
Subject:    Re: future of dual booting Windows and Fedora, redux
From:       "Chris Murphy" <lists () colorremedies ! com>
Date:       2022-07-29 12:58:58
Message-ID: f78a3c6c-d814-4f1e-9907-3999a9956f8b () www ! fastmail ! com
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On Fri, Jul 29, 2022, at 5:25 AM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Fr, 29.07.22 00:21, Peter Boy (pboy@uni-bremen.de) wrote:
> 
> > > One is not really supposed to have multiple ESPs
> > 
> > I have another question regarding multiple ESPs, maybe a bit
> > off-topic. For software raid we currently have a kind of „off-label
> > use". Anaconda puts the ESP on a raid partition (and the /boot
> > partition as well) and so the partition is marked as RAID and not as
> > ESP. I know, there are several alternatives in development to
> > synchronise ESP partitions, but none is included in Anaconda. And
> > maybe none of the alternatives is ready for production. How does
> > this fit into the plans being discussed here?  It is an important
> > issue for Fedora Server.
> 
> That's a terrible idea. UEFI file system drivers are
> read/write. 

The built-in FAT driver is rw. The efifs drivers (via GRUB) are ro.

Yes it's a terrible idea. I've mentioned this many times elsewhere it's come up. I'm \
not sure whether the loophole to use mdadm RAID1 for ESP is still in Anaconda. \
Originally it was added, as I understand it, because a RHEL customer requested it.



> Given that firmware and uefi programs can and do write through the
> official sanctioned UEFI APIs to the ESP using RAID on ESP is a really
> bad idea — unless the firmware also implements your flavour of
> RAID. But it would be news to me that firmwares exist that support
> Linux software RAID natively.

Intel IMSM format is supported by Linux software RAID. You can use Intel firmware \
RAID a.k.a. fake-RAID for this. Or any firmware RAID using a format supported by \
mdadm including DDF.

Otherwise, right now, the sync use case is in bootupd's court.


> I mean, my understanding is that you want to increase reliability by
> having a working ESP around on multiple disks. But by doing such
> off-label use stuff you just create problems for yourself that
> decrease realiability.

Yep. Software RAID to increase uptime following failure is OK. But degraded boot is \
fraught with problems and unreliability. I don't think it should be a requirement for \
any Fedora product.

-- 
Chris Murphy
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