Benefits of using uefi intallation for prox instead of bios

[ieronymous]

Hi
Even though until now all the prox installations have been done in uefi mode I am not really sure what is the benefit of that. On the contrary needs more work when you have set prox in mirror zfs mode and also needs to alter different paths during passthrough configuration for instance.

What are you thoughts? Is there really any benefit using uefi for installation?

ps I know that soft-tech moves to uefi and bios tends to be absolute in the following years

 

[aaron]

Besides a few changes in how things are set up and where you need to place config cmdline settings, the main big advantage, and why there is a difference at all, is if you install Proxmox VE on a ZFS root pool. In this situation you will definitely want to use UEFI and not Grub. As Grub only supports a very small subset of ZFS features. Using UEFI in combination with the proxmox-boot-tool to keep all the EFI partitions on the boot disks in sync gives you the chance to enable the new ZFS features without having to worry about a system that won't boot anymore.

For those who want more background information, check out the documentation: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#sysboot

 

[spirit]

bios,firmware,ipmi update through uefi with https://fwupd.org/

(a lot of manufacters already support it)

apt install fwupd
fwupdmgr refresh
fwupdmgr update

 

[ieronymous]

bios,firmware,ipmi update through uefi with https://fwupd.org/

(a lot of manufacters already support it)

apt install fwupd
fwupdmgr refresh
fwupdmgr update

That probably is a nice feature.

 

[ieronymous]

Besides a few changes in how things are set up and where you need to place config cmdline settings, the main big advantage, and why there is a difference at all, is if you install Proxmox VE on a ZFS root pool. In this situation you will definitely want to use UEFI and not Grub. As Grub only supports a very small subset of ZFS features. Using UEFI in combination with the proxmox-boot-tool to keep all the EFI partitions on the boot disks in sync gives you the chance to enable the new ZFS features without having to worry about a system that won't boot anymore.

For those who want more background information, check out the documentation: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#sysboot

Since I always have the installation on a zfs pool that is a nice thing to have in mind. Of course doesn t take away the headache when you need to replace a disk with a new one in a zfs raid. First you need to make the partitions exact the same (I think there are three) then resilver the correct partition and sync the boot partition.

 

[aaron]

Since I always have the installation on a zfs pool that is a nice thing to have in mind. Of course doesn t take away the headache when you need to replace a disk with a new one in a zfs raid. First you need to make the partitions exact the same (I think there are three) then resilver the correct partition and sync the boot partition.

If the disks are exactly the same size or larger, that is done quite easily though. There is a chapter in the Proxmox VE admin guide going through exactly this scenario. Search for "Changing a failed bootable device": https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#_zfs_administration

 

[ieronymous]

If the disks are exactly the same size or larger, that is done quite easily though. There is a chapter in the Proxmox VE admin guide going through exactly this scenario. Search for "Changing a failed bootable device": https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#_zfs_administration

Thanks for the link even though I have already read it and tested it in a simulation of a failed disk. Still it requires enough steps to say that it is a one command process which makes you feel comfortable with.

 

[ieronymous]

bios,firmware,ipmi update through uefi with https://fwupd.org/

(a lot of manufacters already support it)

apt install fwupd
fwupdmgr refresh
fwupdmgr update

By the way do you know a work around for WARNING: UEFI capsule updates not available or enabled in firmware setup while running fwupdmgr refresh

PS Probably needs a new server / pc in order for fwupd to work since I used it in 4 systems with no results. So it is not a big benefit to make someone use uefi.

 

[spirit]

By the way do you know a work around for WARNING: UEFI capsule updates not available or enabled in firmware setup while running fwupdmgr refresh

PS Probably needs a new server / pc in order for fwupd to work since I used it in 4 systems with no results. So it is not a big benefit to make someone use uefi.

you also need to install "udisks2" package since bullseye to correctly find the uefi partition.

I'm using it on my lenovo servers, and I have already updated bios, nvme disk firmware, bmc firmware

 

[ieronymous]

you also need to install "udisks2" package since bullseye to correctly find the uefi partition.

I'm using it on my lenovo servers, and I have already updated bios, nvme disk firmware, bmc firmware

udisks2 is already the newest version (2.9.2-2).
udisks2 set to manually installed.