boot.loader.efi.efiSysMountPoint doesn't work as expected

[Atemu]

Describe the bug
A clear and concise description of what the bug is.

GRUB says it installs into boot.loader.efi.efiSysMountPoint when the install script is run but actually installs itself into /boot which is no bueno because that's not my ESP.

systemd-boot installs itself into efiSysMountPoint as expected but also puts the kernels and initrds on it which is bad again because my ESP is only 100M (thanks M$).

This leaves no way to have a separate ESP and boot partition which is essential for dual boot with Windows.

Expected behavior
A clear and concise description of what you expected to happen.

Boot loaders should go into boot.loader.efi.efiSysMountPoint and the kernels etc. should go into /boot/ (or, even better, a user-specified location)

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

While we're at it we might want to look into making systemd-boot and GRUB share the same initrds and kernels because activating both duplicates them currently.

Notify maintainers

@nh2 @samueldr

Metadata
Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

Maintainer information:

# a list of nixpkgs attributes affected by the problem
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# a list of nixos modules affected by the problem
module:

[samueldr]

GRUB should be installing to the EFI mountpoint:

• nixpkgs/nixos/modules/system/boot/loader/grub/install-grub.pl

  Line 717 in 9332bca

  my @command = ("$grubEfi/sbin/grub-install", "--recheck", "--target=$grubTargetEfi", "--boot-directory=$bootPath", "--efi-directory=$efiSysMountPoint", @extraGrubInstallArgs);

Maybe we should have a UEFI test that uses the efi system mount point feature to validate this. I have not verified whether it works or not.

I'm interested in hearing more details about your setup and what you are observing.

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I thought systemd-boot required boot entries to live on the ESP.

systemd-boot loads boot entry information from the EFI system partition (ESP), [...], as well as from the Extended Boot Loader partition if it exists (usually mounted to /boot/).

• https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-boot.html

Looks like it can do something else too.

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Boot loaders should go into boot.loader.efi.efiSysMountPoint and the kernels etc. should go into /boot/ (or, even better, a user-specified location)

User-specified would be helpful. Defaulting to /boot would probably keep the current behaviour, but such a change would need to be studied carefully, considering each bootloader config handles installing boot files independently.

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[Atemu]

Still important to me.

[colemickens]

Just hit this myself. I'd like to see this fixed too, though I might be more inclined to spend my effort on a different approach to generation/bootloader handling by adding grub2 support to 'bootspec' but that's just a dream right now.

I sort of have a little bit of a loose undefined list in my head -- We are also inconsistent about how grub is installed into a subdirectory when bootloaderId is set or unset. This stuff was noticed when I wrote a module to enable secure boot by using Fedora's shim and then using mokutil to disable secondary verification.

[colemickens]

BTW, it seems like the Arch wiki is based on a 2016 comment on systemd that hints that the path forward is "/efi" and xbootloader on "/boot". systemd/systemd#3757 (comment)