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I currently have my ESP partition at /boot/efi (actually, it's not even mounted there, no entry in /etc/fstab at all; I installed my system years ago and can't remember why it's setup that way but it's worked OK til now), and would like to have it at /boot instead. I'm currently using GRUB 2 as my boot loader but I don't really know how it works (again, I installed it years ago and never had to touch it since then). And this is Arch Linux.

What would I have to do to make this happen?

Copy everything from /boot to the ESP then add an entry to /etc/fstab to mount the ESP as /boot, but I suspect there might be paths to change in some config files now that EFI would be at /boot/EFI rather than /boot/efi/EFI.

Content of /boot currently:

  • grub/
  • initramfs-linux.img
  • initramfs-linx-fallback.img
  • intel-ucode.img
  • vmlinuz-linux

Content of the ESP:

  • EFI
    • arch
      • grubx64.efi
      • fwupdx64.efi
      • fw/
    • Dell/Bios/Recovery/

Context: I want to move to full disk encryption (using LVM on LUKS 2; currently, I have no encryption at all, neither / nor /home), and for that I need to have the kernel and initramfs on an unencrypted partition for GRUB to load (correct me if I'm wrong). I thought the easiest would be to simply have it on the ESP and thus make the ESP /boot rather than /boot/efi.

Suggestions for alternatives are welcome (please provide pros and cons).

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  • You may have to reinstall Grub since the boot loader will have to open a FAT partition and no more an ext2. The --efi-directory option can specify the /boot directory as an EFI partition. I have not try such a configuration but I guess it should work. Normally, grub-install determines the needed modules (here fat.mo) and make an EFI loader abled to open your the boot partition.
    – Frédéric Loyer
    Oct 11, 2021 at 11:45
  • You probably have a BIOS/MBR configuration which does not use ESP. To see details: Please copy & paste the pastebin link to the Boot-info summary report ( do not post report), do not run the auto fix till reviewed. help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair LVM is logical volumes and is totally contained in one physical partition. With Ubuntu newest grub2 can boot without a /boot partition outside LVM, but ESP still must be in a FAT32 partition not in LVM. LVM install to Arch gist.github.com/mattiaslundberg/8620837 & ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2370388
    – oldfred
    Oct 11, 2021 at 16:03

1 Answer 1

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TL;DR:

  1. copy everything from /boot to the ESP
  2. mount the ESP to /boot
  3. regenerate the /boot/grub/grub.conf through grub-mkconfig
  4. run grub-install (mostly to update the EFI Boot)
  5. reboot to the new boot
  6. cleanup the old boot (/boot, EFI/arch, efibootmgr)

What I ended up doing, with success:

  1. mount ESP to… anywhere (I used /boot/efi)
  2. copy everything (particularly the initramfs, microcode, kernel, and grub/ folder, though that last one might have not been necessary) from /boot to the ESP
  3. unmount the ESP, and remount it to /boot
  4. run grub-mkconfig to generate a new /boot/grub/grub.conf

At that point, I wanted to check that all would be running OK, so I:

  1. unmounted the ESP and remounted it to /boot/efi
  2. diffed the /boot/grub/grub.conf and /boot/efi/grub/grub.conf
  3. copied menuentry blocks from one to the other so I could (hopefully) boot both options
  4. rebooted and tried the new option to boot from the ESP: it worked (meaning, IIUC, that the files copied to the ESP were OK to boot the system)

I then jumped the gap and made the switch:

  1. mount the ESP to /boot
  2. edit the /etc/fstab to mount it on boot (I actually used genfstab to generate the appropriate fstab line)
  3. run grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB (previous one was named arch, so no conflict)
  4. reboot (note that I have a menuentry from my old grub.conf to, hopefully, boot on the old "system" just in case)

And finally, do some cleanup:

  1. unmount ESP and remove everything from the old /boot (as ESP is mounted here anyway, shadowing those files)
  2. remove the menuentry I added to my grub.conf
  3. remove the old GRUB entry in EFI using efibootmgr
  4. remove the old GRUB entry from the ESP (/boot/EFI/arch/)
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