[bugs #8539] Allow use of grub-install in chrooted environment

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

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/**************************************************************************/
[bugs #8539] Latest Modifications:

Changes by: 
                Yoshinori K. Okuji <address@hidden>
'Date: 
                Tue 04/27/04 at 21:17 (GMT)

------------------ Additional Follow-up Comments ----------------------------
Hmm, it sounds really difficult. What tool can you use in the chroot 
environment? Can you use Perl or stat, for example?

Okuji






/**************************************************************************/
[bugs #8539] Full Item Snapshot:

URL: <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=8539>
Project: GNU GRUB
Submitted by: 0
On: Sun 04/11/04 at 12:13

Category:  Installation
Severity:  Major
Priority:  5 - Normal
Item Group:  Feature Request
Resolution:  Works for me
Assigned to:  None
Originator Name:  Sven Vermeulen
Originator Email:  address@hidden
Status:  Open
Release:  0.94
Reproducibility:  Every Time
Planned Release:  


Summary:  Allow use of grub-install in chrooted environment

Original Submission:  Is it possible to allow grub-install to be used inside a 
chrooted environment? The main issue here is that grub-install requires a 
correct /etc/mtab which, in a chrooted environment, isn't 100% accurate. 

A possibility would be to have a --root-device=/dev/hda1 option (instead or 
supplementary to --root-directory). This way there is no need for querying 
/etc/mtab and can grub-install be safely used in a chrooted environment.

Follow-up Comments
------------------


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Date: Tue 04/27/04 at 21:17         By: okuji
Hmm, it sounds really difficult. What tool can you use in the chroot 
environment? Can you use Perl or stat, for example?

Okuji

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Date: Sun 04/25/04 at 18:01         By: None
Sadly, no. /proc/mounts uses the paths from the real root, not the chroot. For 
instance, if the boot partition is mounted under /mnt/gentoo/boot, then 
/proc/mounts contains /mnt/gentoo/boot, wheras /etc/mtab should read "/boot" 
(because we're chrooted inside /mnt/gentoo).

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Date: Wed 04/21/04 at 11:13         By: okuji
Copying /proc/mounts to /etc/mtab suffices. Don't you agree?

Okuji

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Date: Sun 04/18/04 at 12:52         By: None
That's just how the installation for Gentoo itself is done, and I believe the 
same goes for LFS. Without chroot, running grub-install fails because it 
requires /sbin/grub. Users are not able to symlink /mnt/gentoo/sbin/grub to 
/sbin/grub as "/" is read-only (LiveCD) (and I don't know if this'll work 
anyway).

When writing my own /etc/mtab with a correct line for the /boot partition, 
running grub-install from within the chroot works. That's why I think it would 
be most beneficial to add this feature to grub-install so that others can use 
this too. Afaik, but this is of course an outsiders opinion, this doesn't 
affect the functionality of grub-install at all for the existing users.

My main motivation for having this as a feature request instead of just 
implementing a work-around for Gentoo is because I believe this feature can be 
used by others as well.

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Date: Mon 04/12/04 at 17:58         By: okuji
You haven't answered my question: why do you need to chroot?

Okuji












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