I just followed the tutorials and migrated 1st from mkinitcpio to dracut and right after that (reboot in between was successful) I 2nd migrated away from grub to system-boot including luks encr<pted disk
All works on two laptops i migrated one after the other.
Weird effect. The second laptop is usually attached to a DELL UW3821 monitor via USB-C. The monitor has a built in dock. When I boot up systemd-boot boots up fine up to the “enter password for luks partition stuff”. This line is being shown for a second and then the screen turns off and even a blindly typed password is not accepted. I can reboot the laptop with a bunch of ctrl-alt-del keystrikes but with the monitor attached “something” happens. A standalone boot works fine.
If of interest as I did that right before: my steps to convert to dracut in short…
sudo pacman -S dracut
sudo pacman -S eos-dracut
sudo pacman -Rc mkinitcpio
sudo micro /etc/dracut.conf.d/encryption.conf # put the encryption line in there (install_items+=...)
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/endeavouros-team/EndeavourOS-ISO/main/airootfs/etc/dracut.conf.d/eos-defaults.conf | sudo tee /etc/dracut.conf.d/eos-defaults.conf
sudo dracut-rebuild
Then I converted to systemd-boot following your tutorial:
sudo pacman -Rc grub
sudo mkdir /efi
efidevice=$(findmnt /boot/efi -no SOURCE) # save the efi partition location
sudo umount /boot/efi
sudo mount ${efidevice} /efi
# cleanup a bit
sudo rm -r /boot/efi /boot/grub /boot/initramfs* /boot/vmlinuz*
sudo micro /etc/fstab # /boot/efi -> /efi -> save
sudo bootctl install
sudo micro /efi/loader/loader.conf # uncomment timeout
sudo pacman -S kernel-install-for-dracut # eos-dracut automatically offered to remove. Did that.
sudo ./migrate-systemd-boot-helper.sh # executed your script - saved it as a file
sudo reinstall-kernels
sudo reboot
# reboot to check if all works - not being asked for a password for luks as keyfile still there in /
sudo cryptsetup luksRemoveKey /dev/nvme0n1p2 /crypto_keyfile.bin
sudo reinstall-kernels
# reboot again for check - standalone laptop no problems - I am asked for luks password and can boot
# when docked laptop display turns black
What I discovered in between: when I configure Laptop to boot with internal display instead of external display in bios I can see that without my interaction “something” seems to send an enter twice so password entry fails and cryptsetup drops me to a press Ctrl-D or login as root shell - but none of the options work here.
The second laptop boots fine with or without external monitor. I can enter the passphrase and boot. Only difference here is that I never implemented hibernation… AND there a /etc/kernel/cmdline exists
EDIT - though I don’t have a /etc/kernel/cmdline on my laptop the resume parameters are there when looking here:
Plugging USB devices / keyboards in and out with reboots. Tried a diffrent docking station. Plugged in an USB-C external disk while booting.
→ whenever there’s power supply via USB-C either via docking station or a dumb power charger then the automatic input happens and I end up in the above shown screenshot.
No clue what may cause this. Worked perfectly before migration to dracut and systemd-boot. And the other laptop I treated in the same manner (just not having a resum/hibernation) works perfectly.
I’ll try to install a completely diferent kernel (zen) to see if the recreation of initramfs etc works better then…
UPDATE: completely fresh installed other kernel did not help… Now clueless.
Whenever there’s sth attached to USB-C that delivers power like my DELL Monitor with an integrated docking station or lenovo usb-c dock. Even a simple usb-c poweradapter connected let’s the boot-up fail. While a simple USB-C disc attached works. Just wonder if I need to add a “module” to the dracut build for boot to work. may be there’s sth missing in the kernel image file
Meanwhile I fount a refrence to my cryptop_keyfile.bin in /etc/crypttab. As I don’t need it anymore I replaced that line with “non” and rebuilt img files. Now I at least can boot with USB-C plugged in.
The difference with that change is that I’m now being askes a third time for thy cryptpassword. I additionally need to configure the laptop to display boot process on internal screen instead of USB-C.
So now I can see that after the 2 “ghost-inputs” the USB-C screen and attached Keyboard/Mous (built in dock) do not work anymore. After entering cryptpassword on laptop keyboard boot continues and all is working fine.
I suppose some module/driver in the image dracut is generating is missing or buggy and causes these ghost inputs. After decrypting root and booting up the correct drivers are loaded and screen/keyboard/monitor is working normally.
I saved journalctl from the second laptop as well and will now compare what’s different. The other laptop (lenovo x270) I treated similar works fine on the USB-C. Only significant difference between the lenovo t14 and the older x270 is that the t14 is an AMD…
systemd-tty-ask-password-agent is being called during boot and if I can pass a parameter to play around with…
comparing the logs nothing seems wrong. on the machine with the error the /dev/tty seems to get an input via usb-c even if it’s a dumb power-plug…
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 systemd-tty-ask-password-agent[531]: Starting password query on /dev/tty1.
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 2-2: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-3: new full-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: tsc: Refined TSC clocksource calibration: 1709.955 MHz
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: clocksource: tsc: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x18a5e35963f, max_idle_ns: 440795253060 ns
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: clocksource: Switched to clocksource tsc
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=04f2, idProduct=b6d0, bcdDevice=59.18
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=1, SerialNumber=2
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 2-2: Product: Integrated Camera
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Chicony Electronics Co.,Ltd.
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 0001
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-3: New USB device found, idVendor=06cb, idProduct=00bd, bcdDevice= 0.00
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=1
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-3: SerialNumber: 1802d1957c26
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-4: new full-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-4: New USB device found, idVendor=8087, idProduct=0029, bcdDevice= 0.01
Mär 08 12:15:38 t14 kernel: usb 6-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: clocksource: timekeeping watchdog on CPU3: Marking clocksource 'tsc' as unstable because the skew is too large:
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: clocksource: 'hpet' wd_nsec: 510570407 wd_now: 1ba9d6c wd_last: 14b1105 mask: ffffffff
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: clocksource: 'tsc' cs_nsec: 506646417 cs_now: 4b39441c7 cs_last: 47ff0eb39 mask: ffffffffffffffff
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: clocksource: 'tsc' is current clocksource.
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: tsc: Marking TSC unstable due to clocksource watchdog
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: TSC found unstable after boot, most likely due to broken BIOS. Use 'tsc=unstable'.
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: sched_clock: Marking unstable (2183226684, 343496)<-(2187891504, -4321624)
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: clocksource: Checking clocksource tsc synchronization from CPU 13 to CPUs 0,2,5,9,11-12,14.
Mär 08 12:15:39 t14 kernel: clocksource: Switched to clocksource hpet
Mär 08 12:15:40 t14 systemd-tty-ask-password-agent[531]: Password query on /dev/tty1 finished successfully.
Mär 08 12:15:40 t14 systemd-cryptsetup[526]: Set cipher aes, mode xts-plain64, key size 512 bits for device /dev/disk/by-uuid/91386e25-1e7b-4df5-819d-96198a54eb82.
Mär 08 12:15:42 t14 systemd-cryptsetup[526]: Failed to activate with specified passphrase. (Passphrase incorrect?)
Mär 08 12:15:42 t14 systemd-tty-ask-password-agent[531]: Starting password query on /dev/tty1.
Mär 08 12:15:42 t14 systemd-tty-ask-password-agent[531]: Password query on /dev/tty1 finished successfully.
Mär 08 12:15:42 t14 systemd-cryptsetup[526]: Set cipher aes, mode xts-plain64, key size 512 bits for device /dev/disk/by-uuid/91386e25-1e7b-4df5-819d-96198a54eb82.
Mär 08 12:15:43 t14 systemd-cryptsetup[526]: Failed to activate with specified passphrase. (Passphrase incorrect?)
Mär 08 12:15:43 t14 systemd-tty-ask-password-agent[531]: Starting password query on /dev/tty1.
Mär 08 12:15:50 t14 systemd-tty-ask-password-agent[531]: Password query on /dev/tty1 finished successfully.
Mär 08 12:15:50 t14 systemd-cryptsetup[526]: Set cipher aes, mode xts-plain64, key size 512 bits for device /dev/disk/by-uuid/91386e25-1e7b-4df5-819d-96198a54eb82.
Mär 08 12:15:50 t14 kernel: Key type encrypted registered
Between 2nd and 3rd Starting password query on tty1 nothing happened in the log. But still there was an “Enter” on the screen that led to an empty passphrase input.
