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partman documentation

partman is the thing responsible for partitioning in the debian installer with the help of so called recipes, which describe how the partitions should be layed out.

Upstream documentation is available at https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/blob/master/doc/devel/partman-auto-recipe.txt

What follows below is an expansion / correction / summary of the above. It is NOT complete, but only a snapshot of what I needed / though important from my quest.

Recipes

General Format (quoted from partman-auto-recipe.txt, original Copyright 2001-2009 by Joey Hess [email protected] and the d-i team, licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL 2 or any later version)

In the following rules we denote spaces by "_".

<recipe>::=<header>_<partitions>

<header>::=<simple name>|<debconf name>

<simple name>::=<name>_:

<name> can be for example "Multi user system".

<debconf name>::=<debconf template>_::

The purpose of <debconf name> is to allow translation of the names of
the recipes into different languages.

<partitions>::=<partition>|<partition>_<partitions>

<partition>::=<limits>_<specifiers>_.

<limits>::=<minimal size>_<priority>_<maximal size>_<parted fs>

Sizes are all given in decimal MB, so 1 MB = 1000 * 1000 Byte and may be rounded to "cylinder size". Max size may be -1 for "no limit". The installer needs at least one partition of a very large / unlimited size to fill the disk.

Sizes can also be given as percentages, with 100% typically equal to the amount of RAM the machine has. This may (and at the time of writing currently is) clamped with the debconf parameter partman-auto/cap-ram so that 100% is only equal to at most 1024MB (current value).

Priority is typically between minimal and maximal size, details about the algorithm for choosing the real size are in partman-auto-recipe.txt, but priority - minimal could be considered a weight.

Example with the following partition Scheme:

bios-gpt-btrfs-atomic ::            
    1 1 1 free                          
        $iflabel{ gpt }                 
        $reusemethod{ }                 
        method{ biosgrub } .            
    512 1024 1024 ext4                  
        $defaultignore{ }               
        $primary{ }                     
        $bootable{ }                    
        label{ deb-boot }               
        method{ format }                
        format{ }                       
        use_filesystem{ }               
        filesystem{ ext4 }              
        mountpoint{ /boot } .           
    1000 10000 -1 btrfs                 
        $lvmok{ }                       
        lv_name{ rootfs }               
        label{ deb-root }               
        method{ format }                
        format{ }                       
        use_filesystem{ }               
        filesystem{ btrfs }             
        mountpoint{ / } .               
    100% 200% 300% linux-swap           
        $lvmok{ }                       
        lv_name{ swap }                 
        method{ swap }                  
        format{ } .

parted fs

The following is a list of values that have been observed

  • $default_filesystem, should go together with the $default_filesystem{ } specifier. Equivalent to FS as <parted fs> and filesystem{ FS } as specifier, with FS from debconf param partman/default_filesystem.
  • btrfs
  • ext2
  • ext3
  • ext4
  • linux-swap

Specifiers

<specifiers>::=<specifier>|<specifier>_<specifiers>

Where specifier is always of the form name{_value_}.

Specifier names may start with $ which typically means they are for partman itself. Other specifiers are created as file name with content value in some partition-specific directory. partman-auto-recipe.txt calls the $ specifiers 'internal' or 'type' and the other specifiers 'regular'.

The changelogs are typically the place where these specifiers are documented.

List of $ specifiers:

  • $bootable{_}: set bootable flag on msdos, no idea what it does on gpt (probably nothing)
  • $default_filesystem{_}: see parted fs type $default_filesystem
  • $defaultignore{_}: Ignore this partition when LVM is NOT in use.
  • $iflabel{_<label>_}: Only consider this partition when the label (partition table type, like gpt) is equal to label.
  • $lvmignore{_}: Ignore this partition when LVM is in use.
  • $lvmok{_}: Partition can be on LVM
  • $primary{_}: primary partition on msdos, no idea what it does on gpt (probably nothing)
  • $reusemethod{_}: ???

List of regular specifiers:

  • filesystem{_<name>_}: "Specifies the filesystem to put on the partition." Allowed values are probably the parted fs types.
  • format{_}: "Also needed to make the partition be formatted."
  • label{_<name>_}: Filesystem label, if supported by the FS. Only works if method{ format } is also specified.
  • lv_name{_<name>_}: Name this logical volume (that is created instead of a partition) name.
  • method{_<name>_}: Name may be
  • mountpoint{_<where>_}: "Where to mount the partition."
  • options/<name>{_<name>_}: Mount options, for nodev,ro use options/nodev{ nodev } options/ro{ ro }.
  • use_filesystem{_}: "Specifies that the partition has a filesystem on it."