kickstart using GPT... without EFI

[Bradley Peterson]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Jonathan Smith <smithj at alaska.edu> wrote:

> We have an x86_64 system with >2tb drives which does not have EFI. However,
> the BIOS will boot GPT if present.
>
> Unfortunately, anaconda seems to only use GPT if (U)EFI is present. I've
> tried creating the GPT label in a ks %pre[1][2], but it didn't help...
> anaconda always overwrites it, even though I don't have a clearpart in my
> ks.
>
> I can successfully convert it after-the-fact, but I'd prefer that it be
> done correctly by kickstart.
>
> Suggestions?
>
>        Jonathan
>
> [1]:
> http://bodgitandscarper.co.uk/centos/forcing-guid-partition-table-on-a-disk-with-centos-6/
> [2]:
> https://www.redhat.com/archives/kickstart-list/2010-June/msg00001.html
>
>
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>

Jonathan,

I had the same problem.  I believe I saw that this would be changed in F16.

Depending on the version of anaconda, if you make a GPT label in %pre and
then don't include '--initlabel' with clearpart, it will leave your GPT
label.  But, It will overwrite it with a DOS partition if it is the boot
drive AND you have 'clearpart --all'.  That is done in
pyanaconda/storage/partitioning.py in the function clearPartitions starting
with the comment

  # make sure that the the boot device has the correct disklabel type if
  # we're going to completely clear it.

and going to the end of the function.


So, my solution was to make an updates.img with a partitioning.py without
that whole chunk of code.  It works fine.

Brad
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