[SOLVED] destroying LUKS thru configuration

[Joris L.]

Hey

I think i've outdone myself here. For an encrypted VM which had uncertain memory requirements i chose to work with changing CPU configuration, memory ballooning and hotplug, enabling 1GB pages for the CPU, NUMA

Despit multiple reboots in multiple configurations this now fails to recognise the luks password, may that be online or offline or in any other configuration tested.

now boots with volume group "myVG" not found

Is this a known problem ?

also, using ZFS the disks appears invisible under /rpool/data

 

[Joris L.]

Though i do not know how to fix this, the data is intact.

• ZFS disk for zfs are found under /dev/zvol/<poolname>/data/...
  • these are actually symbolic links to /dev/<devicename> look for the vm-<vmid>-<partid> and use `ls -l vm-<vmid>-<partid>*` to identify the actual device name under ../../../<devicename> as in /dev/<devicename> or /dev/<devicename>p<n>
• LUKS: first check if it still is readable at all using `testdisk /dev/<devicename>p<n>` or using cfdisk /dev/<devicename>p<n>\
  • cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/<devicename>p<n> <mountname> : here you need the encryption key obviously
  • if the disk-volume is an LVM volume there will be /dev/mapper/<mountname> created and <volume-group-mountpoint> devices
    • these can be mounted like regular partitions

 

[Joris L.]

ROOT CAUSE:

I've not observed this but it seems for some reason the machine rebooted without the most recent linux image package completed installation.

After messing with the VM configuration and mounting the disks i came to the conclusion the system was also intact. So did what i should have tried in the first place and booted from the old kernel into recovery mode.

This after trying `update-initramfs -k all -u` and `reboot` to no avail.

Now in recovery mode, somehow, the password is now accepted and i perform `apt update && apt upgrade` which throws a message suggesting to run `dpkg --configure -a` which promptly restarting installing of a linux kernel image.

It still doesn't make sense too much. Initially the password failed for the LUKS device, now the password is accepted again. My guess is PEBKAC but it may also have been aliens or something i don't know.