Ubuntu – Resizing boot partition with full disk encryption

bootencryptionpartitioning

I have seen the answers to the general question regarding resizing the boot partition. In my case, I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 Alternate with full disk encryption. Since the drive can not be mounted during the resize operation, won't this corrupt the main partition?

I have everything backed up so I could potentially do a re-install, but I do not know how to specify the boot partition size prior to encryption.

Best Answer

I know this question is old, but comes up when searching for the small boot partition problem and using disk encryption.

Ubuntu installer ubiquity uses partman for partitioning. When "Use the entire disk" option is selected, the partition configurations come from partman recipe files in /lib/partman/recipes-[arch]/* and /lib/partman/recipes/* on the live CD. Find the recipe used by the installer, and modify the maximum size for /boot partition. On my system, the default recipe used is /lib/partman/recipes/30atomic. Open the Terminal:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo nano /lib/partman/recipes/30atomic

Go to the section for the boot partition and change the third number (256 below) to the size you want (I'd recommend at least 512):

128 512 256 ext2
    $defaultignore{ }
    method{ format }
    format{ }
    use_filesystem{ }
    filesystem{ ext2 }
    mountpoint{ /boot }

This section says size is going to be between 128M and 256M with a priority of 512, which determines how important the size of this partition with respect to others.

Save it with Ctrl+O, Enter. Then start the installer, install as usual.

Related Question