How to safely increase the size of /boot partition?

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

This is my partition layout. I want to increase the size of /boot, though I’ve never done this before, so I am a treading lightly here and hoping to receive some guidance on how to safely perform this.

I have Live USB environments of Arch and Debian to use for this purpose.

Any advice on how to go about this?

NAME                         MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1                      259:0    0  2.8T  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1                  259:1    0  502M  0 part  /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2                  259:2    0  428M  0 part  /boot
└─nvme0n1p3                  259:3    0  2.8T  0 part  
  └─nvme0n1p3_crypt          254:0    0  2.8T  0 crypt 
    ├─HomePC--vg-root   254:1    0  2.8T  0 lvm   /
    └─HomePC--vg-swap_1 254:2    0  876M  0 lvm   [SWAP]
2

That will not be easy given your disk layout.

You will need to shrink your root filesystem. Then shrink the lvm partition, then shrink the luks volume. Then shift the luks volume right. Then expand the boot partition.

All of those things involve a risk of data loss so be sure you have backups.

Alternatively, you could just remove your boot partition and let those files live in the root partition.

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3

Would it be possible to just have one big ESP (P1 + P2) for both Grub’s bootloader and kernel images etc. and mount at /boot ?

4

You could also do that. I think that would be more work than just deleting the boot partition and copying the files into the root though.

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5

Reading that just gave me anxiety, lol.

Does the risk of data loss come from messing up or is the risk still there despite doing everything properly?

6

Whenever you move or resize a partition, there is a risk the operation fails.

Often, such a failure results in partial or complete data loss. Even if you do everything correctly.

Personally, i wouldn’t try it on a real installation that held my data.

I would try one of the alternative approaches.