{"id":120,"date":"2025-08-15T16:16:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/?p=120"},"modified":"2025-08-15T16:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:16:23","slug":"resizing-another-too-small-boot-partition-live-and-in-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/15\/16\/16\/resizing-another-too-small-boot-partition-live-and-in-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Resizing another too small \/boot partition. Live and in-place."},"content":{"rendered":"

Debian 13 “Trixie” has updated the minimum \/boot<\/code> size to 768MiB. This laptop was installed with a \/boot<\/code> of only 488MiB \u2014 just enough to upgrade to Trixie, but likely to cause issues in the future. Unfortunately, an encrypted LVM partition is directly adjacent to the \/boot<\/code> partition, so we cannot simply resize it. Instead, we\u2019ll recreate both partitions. Thanks to the magic of LVM, we\u2019ll do this live and in place.<\/p>\n

This process should be safe, but I have a backup in place using the excellent Relax and Recover<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We will attach an external drive (\/dev\/sdb<\/code>) to the volume group, move the logical volumes to it, repartition the internal drive (\/dev\/sda<\/code>), and then move everything back.<\/p>\n

Step 1 \u2014 Prepare the External Drive<\/h2>\n

We\u2019ll use an external disk (\/dev\/sdb<\/code>) as a temporary storage location.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Wipe and partition the disk<\/strong>:
    Wipe existing signatures:
    wipefs -a \/dev\/sdb<\/code>
    Then use gpart<\/code> (or another partitioning tool) to create a single partition large enough to hold all the data from the LVM volumes you\u2019ll move.<\/li>\n
  2. Encrypt the new partition<\/strong>:
    cryptsetup luksFormat \/dev\/sdb1<\/code><\/li>\n
  3. Open the encrypted partition<\/strong>:
    cryptsetup luksOpen \/dev\/sdb1 sdb1_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n
  4. Mark for LVM and add to VG<\/strong>:
    pvcreate \/dev\/mapper\/sdb1_crypt<\/code>
    vgextend laptop-vg \/dev\/mapper\/sdb1_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Step 2 \u2014 Move Data to the External Drive<\/h2>\n

    Run the following to move all data off the internal encrypted volume:<\/p>\n

    pvmove --autobackup y --atomic \/dev\/mapper\/sda3_crypt<\/code><\/pre>\n
    If the volume group becomes inconsistent, re-add sda3_crypt<\/code> and clean it up:<\/p>\n
    cryptsetup luksOpen \/dev\/sda3 sda3_crypt\nvgck --updatemetadata laptop-vg\nvgreduce laptop-vg \/dev\/mapper\/sda3_crypt<\/code><\/pre>\n
    Step 3 \u2014 Resize \/boot<\/h2>\n
      \n
    1. Unmount \/boot\/efi<\/code>: umount \/boot\/efi<\/code><\/li>\n
    2. Backup \/boot<\/code>: tar -cavf \/boot.tar.xz \/boot<\/code><\/li>\n
    3. Unmount \/boot<\/code>: umount \/boot<\/code><\/li>\n
    4. Delete and recreate \/dev\/sda2<\/code> as a 1GiB partition using gpart<\/code>, then reload the partition table: partprobe \/dev\/sda<\/code><\/li>\n
    5. Run fsck \/dev\/sda2<\/code> and resize2fs \/dev\/sda2<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      Step 4 \u2014 Recreate the Encrypted Volume<\/h2>\n
        \n
      1. Create the partition using gpart<\/code>, then reload the partition table: partprobe \/dev\/sda<\/code><\/li>\n
      2. Encrypt the partition: cryptsetup luksFormat \/dev\/sda3<\/code><\/li>\n
      3. Open it: cryptsetup luksOpen \/dev\/sda3 sda3_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n
      4. Mark for LVM: pvcreate \/dev\/mapper\/sda3_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n
      5. Add to VG: vgextend laptop-vg \/dev\/mapper\/sda3_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n
      6. Move data back: pvmove --autobackup y --atomic \/dev\/mapper\/sdb1_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n
      7. Remove temporary disk: vgreduce laptop-vg \/dev\/mapper\/sdb1_crypt<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        Step 5 \u2014 Update Configuration<\/h2>\n
          \n
        1. Get the new UUID: lsblk --nodeps --noheadings -o uuid \/dev\/sda3<\/code><\/li>\n
        2. Edit \/etc\/crypttab<\/code> with the new UUID<\/li>\n
        3. Update initramfs: update-initramfs -k all -u<\/code><\/li>\n
        4. Mount \/boot<\/code> and \/boot\/efi<\/code>: mount \/boot && mount \/boot\/efi<\/code><\/li>\n
        5. Reboot and fix any unexpected issues<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
          Debian 13 “Trixie” has updated the minimum \/boot size to 768MiB. This laptop was installed with a \/boot of only 488MiB \u2014 just enough to upgrade to Trixie, but likely to cause issues in the future. Unfortunately, an encrypted LVM partition is directly adjacent to the \/boot partition, so we cannot simply resize it. Instead, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,20,10,18,21,23],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boot","tag-cryptsetup","tag-debian","tag-partition","tag-resize","tag-trixie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beitsahour.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}