debcrafters-packages team mailing list archive

[Paride Legovini <1940691@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

@Keelung: if you have a _similar_ issue, I suggest filing a separate bug
report providing context on what you are trying to do and on what fails.
This bug looks very specific, and may not apply to your case.

@Bill: could it just be that you do not specify the size= field in the
new partition table, so maybe sfdisk assumes size=0, which means the
partition stards _and_ ends at 2048, which causes the error? What do you
expect the size to be?

I'm marking this report as Incomplete for now.

** Changed in: util-linux (Ubuntu)
       Status: Confirmed => Incomplete

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1940691

Title:
  sfdisk fails to overwrite disks that contain a pre-existing linux
  partition

Status in util-linux package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  This command should non-interactively obliterate whatever partition
  table is on /dev/sde, and create a new table with a linux partition
  that spans the whole disk:

    $ sfdisk --label gpt /dev/sde <<< 'start=2048, type='"$(sfdisk
  --label gpt -T | awk '{IGNORECASE = 1;} /linux filesystem/{print
  $1}')"

  Sometimes it works correctly; sometimes not.  It seems to work
  correctly as long as the pre-existing partition table does not already
  contain a linux partition.  E.g. if the existing table just contains
  an exFAT partition, there's no issue.  But if there is a linux
  partition, it gives this output:

  -----
  Old situation:

  Device     Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
  /dev/sde1   2048 1953525134 1953523087 931.5G Linux root (x86-64)

  >>> Created a new GPT disklabel (GUID: <redacted>).
  /dev/sde1: Sector 2048 already used.
  Failed to add #1 partition: Numerical result out of range
  Leaving.
  -----

  sfdisk should *always* overwrite the target disk unconditionally.
  This is what the dump of the target drive looks like in the failure
  case:

  $ sfdisk -d /dev/sdd
  label: gpt
  label-id: <redacted>
  device: /dev/sdd
  unit: sectors
  first-lba: 34
  last-lba: 1953525134
  grain: 33553920
  sector-size: 512

  /dev/sdd1 : start=        2048, size=  1953523087,
  type=4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709, uuid=<redacted>,
  name="Linux x86-64 root (/)"

  $ sfdisk -v
  sfdisk from util-linux 2.36.1

  Even the workaround is broken.  That is, running the following:

  $ wipefs -a /dev/sde

  should put the disk in a state that can be overwritten.  But whatever
  residual metadata it leaves behind still triggers the sfdisk bug:

  $ sfdisk --label gpt /dev/sde <<< 'start=2048, type='"$(sfdisk --label gpt -T | awk '{IGNORECASE = 1;} /linux filesystem/{print $1}')"
  Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ... OK

  Disk /dev/sde: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
  Disk model: Disk
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 33553920 bytes

  >>> Created a new GPT disklabel (GUID: <redacted>).
  /dev/sde1: Sector 2048 already used.
  Failed to add #1 partition: Numerical result out of range
  Leaving.

  Workaround 2 (also fails):

  $ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sde bs=1M count=512

  $ sfdisk -d /dev/sde
  sfdisk: /dev/sde: does not contain a recognized partition table

  ^ the nuclear option did the right thing, but sfdisk still fails to
  partition the drive (same error).

  The *only* workaround that works is an interactive partitioning with
  gdisk.

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