4 Feb
2025
4 Feb
'25
6:52 a.m.
Hi Mike,
On Mon, Feb 03, 2025 at 11:04:56AM +0000, Mike Zanker via BitFolk Users wrote:
# gdisk -l /dev/xvda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.9
Partition table scan:
MBR: MBR only
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: not present
***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory.
***************************************************************
Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
33 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.
All of these scary warnings are due to the use of gdisk here on a disk
which actually only has an MBR. It is trying very hard to interpret what
it sees in terms of a GPT so for example after it invents a GPT from the
MBR, the backup GPT that would go at the end of the disk would be on top
of where the xvda1 partition is now, which is why it complains about
that. It's just telling you that you can't expect to write this GPT out
without data loss.
If you looked at it with, for example,
# fdisk -u -l /dev/xvda
then it will be less scary as fdisk is for MBR disks.
Also other tools like sfdisk which support both MBR and GPT will just
report what is there without assuming that you want to convert to a GPT.
Disk /dev/xvda: 73400320 sectors, 35.0 GiB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 8E9ED44B-E11E-4A56-BA6B-19D5F9FDC57E
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 73400286
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 73400319 35.0 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem
Am I right in assuming that I'll have to apply the fix before I
upgrade to Debian 13 later this year?
The problem that prompted this thread was that newer versions of grub
*on GPT disks* now seem to really want to see a bios_boot partition, but
our install media for Ubuntu 24.04 did not create any such partition,
and this was causing package upgrade problems.
You do not have a GPT disk; you have an MBR (i.e. DOS style partitions),
which is now the most common disk layout in use at BitFolk. So I've no
reason to believe you will ever see a problem with this unless you want
to do something that MBR can't do, such as having a partition larger
than 2TiB.
There is a page on the wiki with some history about disk layouts that
have been in use at BitFolk. All of them will still exist somewhere as
there are still VPSes from 2007 or so that are running. It hasn't yet
been updated to cover Ubuntu 24.04 with a GPT and full bios_boot and
ESP. It's possible that could become the next standard layout.
<https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Growing_filesystems_and_disks#Disk_layouts_in_use_at_BitFolk>
Thanks,
Andy
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