[Tails-dev] #6538: Tails Installer tries to install to too s…

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Old-Topics: Re: [Tails-dev] Installation USB-Stick
Subject: [Tails-dev] #6538: Tails Installer tries to install to too small devices [Was: Installation USB-Stick]
intrigeri wrote (10 Sep 2013 10:17:30 GMT) :
> Andreas Meyer wrote (10 Sep 2013 09:53:02 GMT) :
>> I guess this is all because the stick is just 1 GB and not 2 GB.


> Yes, probably.


> After fiddling manually with GPT / MBR, I have sometimes seen this
> error too (due to some weirdness in how GPT legacy mode works, IIRC)
> even when doing "Clone & Install".


> Wiping out the first MB or so of the drive has always restored things
> to workable state for me.


Actually, while working on the automated test suite, I've hit this
issue in this scenario:

  Scenario: Installing Tails to a USB drive with an MBR partition table but no partitions
    Given a computer
    And I create a 2 GiB disk named "mbr"
    And I create a msdos label on disk "mbr"
    And the computer is set to boot from the Tails DVD
    [...]
    And I plug USB drive "mbr"
    And I "Clone & Install" Tails to USB drive "mbr"


So, it seems that Tails Installer does not correctly detect when the
destination device is too small to hold the system partition. The fact
that the destination device already has a MBR partition table might
matter, or not.

Reported as #6538, added implementation hints, marked as "easy":

https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/6538

Any taker? (This looks like good stuff for e.g. Andres or WinterFairy,
I guess.)

Cheers!
--
intrigeri
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