Package: debian-installer-12-netboot-amd64 (20230607+deb12u1)
Severity: high
Configured System:
HPE DL20
1x 480GB SSD
3x 960GB SSD
I am installing Debian Linux on servers using UEFI PXE and a preseed file for a touchless installation. This has been our standard method for Debian installs for years, starting with "buster." It has worked VERY reliably for us.
When using the same method to install Debian 12, I am noticing that the installer is detecting the drives out of order. It does not match what the server BIOS or HPE ILO5 displays. With each PXE installation attempt the ordering can vary. Looking in /dev/disk/by-path you can see the symlinks differ between install attempts. Sometimes the order matches the PCI bus reference and sometimes it's jumbled up.
This is an issue when you want to tell partman to use /dev/sda (the first drive) for the installation and have grub installed properly on /dev/sda. This is even worse when trying to do a software RAID1 via preseed. The pairs of drives are not being selected in a predictable fashion.
Interestingly enough, after the installation is complete and the Debian 12 system is booted up, it always shows the drives in the proper order, 100% of the time. But the boot media may or may not be the correct drive. This is only an issue at install time.
This past week I performed dozens of PXE installs on a set of 3 servers. Debian 11 had no problems. Only Debian 12 displayed this behavior on each of the 3 servers. I tried updating firmware on all 3 servers so that it is running the latest versions, but that had no effect.