Using the same Mender FS artifact for VMs with different disk partitions names

Board Integrations Debian family
1

Hi,
We are starting to use Mender our product, it looks like a good fit for us!
However, we have several VMs with the same OS (Ubuntu 18 for example) but with different disk types AKA partitioning schemas (DOS/MBR and GPT). In each disk type the partitions are named differently.

From our experience, using an artifact that was build on one disk type does not work on the other, and causes the VM boot loader to crash, because of the mismatch between the partitions names between the artifact (meaning the partitions names on the source machine) and the target machine.

Is there any solution that allows using the same Mender FS artifact for VMs that have different disk labels (DOS/MBR and GPT) / partitions names?
Is it possible not to “bake” the partition name into the artifact and get it dynamically on the target VM?
Is there a known way to set/name the partitions on all disk types in way that will overcome this issue?
Or, is it not possible at all, and each of the disks requires a dedicated artifact?
If it not possible on the open source version - is it a feature on one of the paid plans?

Thank you

2

Hi @zivkapl,

There is experimental support for using the partition UUIDs instead of block device names. This is the closest thing that is currently available.

Possible ways forward are:

  • for paid plans, we offer professional services and roadmap acceleration, depending on scope/effort. If this is interesting to you, please get in touch.
  • in the open source world, contributing a feature that matches your needs might work: possibly a specialized Update Module

Greetz,
Josef