Elementary OS with custom partitions - lvm, luks - doesn't ask for password at boot

Question

I've tried installing Elementary OS with a custom partition scheme, using both LVM and Luks, but after the installation I can't log into the system: the kernel boots but cannot mount the encrypted root partition. It fails with:

WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad. Falling back to device scanning.
Volume group "elementary-vg" not found
Cannot process volume group elementary-vg

This is the way I performed the custom partition scheme. I booted Elementary OS from an USB pen, launched gparted and created the following partitions:

/dev/sda1   efi         fat32     512MB (boot, esp)
/dev/sda2   boot        ext4      732MB
/dev/sda3   not mapped          10240MB 
/dev/sda4   luks        remaining space

Then with a command line:

# cryptsetup luksFormat --hash=sha256 --key-size=512 --cipher=aes-xts-plain64 --verify-passphrase /dev/sda4
# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda4 elementary
# pvcreate /dev/mapper/elementary
# vgcreate elementary-vg /dev/mapper/elementary
# lvcreate -n root -L 32G elementary-vg
# lvcreate -n swap_1 -L 12G elementary-vg
# lvcreate -n users -l +100%FREE elementary-vg
# vgscan

Then I launched the installer and used the "Something else" option for the disk. I mapped the existing partitions as follows:

/dev/sda1                            efi
/dev/sda2                            ext4    /boot           format
/dev/mapper/elementary-vg--root      ext4    /               format
/dev/mapper/elementary-vg--swap      swap    
/dev/mapper/elementary-vg--users     ext4    /media/users    format

The installation correctly completes, as I said, but it fails at the next reboot.

I even logged in with the USB key, ran the usual stuff for chrooting into the installation and performed and apt update; apt dist-upgrade. It went fine, updated the initramfs and grub, but didn't fix the problem.

The Luks setup seems fine, in fact if I enter the grub command line I can manually mount the encrypted root:

grub> insmod luks
grub> cryptomount hd0,gpt4
grub> insmod lvm
grub> ls

and I can see the logical volumes.

Please suggest what I should do to fix the existing installation. Thanks.

Answer 1

Ok, it seems I've found the solution, but I'd like to see some confirmation because all this stuff seems complex and I see that has been changed multiple times with recent updates of Linux.

I understood that a file /etc/crypttab must exist and enumerate the devices to be unlocked at boot. Giving a custom partition scheme, the Elementary installer didn't create it.

So I booted again from the USB key and chrooted into the system. For the convenience of other users with similar problems I'm providing the steps:

# cryptsetup open /dev/sda4 elementary
# vgscan
# vgchange -ay
# lvscan
# mkdir /mnt/system
# mount /dev/mapper/elementary--vg-root /mnt/system/
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/system/boot/                        
# mount -o bind /dev/ /mnt/system/dev/
# mount -o bind /proc/ /mnt/system/proc/
# mount -o bind /sys/ /mnt/system/sys/
# chroot /mnt/system

Then I got the luks UUID of the device:

# cryptsetup luksDump /dev/sda4 | grep UUID

and then created /etc/crypttab with:

elementary  UUID=<uuid> none    luks

At last I ran:

# initramfs -u -k all

and at this point the system booted fine, asking for the password and mounting the encrypted device at boot.