Bug#414309: cannot configure encrypted volume if stray swap exists
Package: debian-installer
Severity: normal
Version: daily-20070308
In the "Partition disks" step, using the "Manual" partitioning method,
I cannot configure encrypted volumes.
I create a partition, for use as a physical volume for encryption.
When I try to "Configure encrypted volumes", I get the error screen
"Unsafe swap space detected" and cannot proceed.
The error screen suggests running swapoff. I press Alt-F2 RET and
type "swapoff -a" to the shell there; it does not help. (But it
should, yes? Is this another bug?)
I have a second disk with an independent installation of Debian on it.
>From looking at /proc/swaps, it appears that the installer saw a swap
partition there and is using it. I didn't ask it to.
After I create the partition and select "Configure encrypted volumes",
the partitioner gives me a screen saying, "Before encrypted volumes
can be configured, the current partitioning scheme has to be written
to disk.... The following partitions are going to be formatted:"
And the offered partition is the swap on the other disk! This seems
wrong, as I haven't touched the other disk. It is when I say "Yes"
to this step that the swap space gets added, making the next step fail.
What does work is "swapoff /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5".
This seems considerably harder to figure out than "swapoff -a".
It also works to, in the partitioner, edit the swap partition on the
other disk and set its "Use as" field to "do not use". It took me a
while to figure this out, and I feel this step should not be
necessary.
If I select "Guided partitioning" and ask for "Guided - encrypted LVM",
it works fine. Somehow this method gets rid of the unwanted swap
device.
< Stephen
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