LUKS/Cryptosetup and LVM: can't input passwords after boot

Question

So I followed many times with success this particular tutorial http://thesimplecomputer.info/full-disk-encryption-with-ubuntu

With 2 slightly different things: lubuntu instead of ubuntu and install it on an USB key instead of a normal drive.

However with my latest attempt with this in a new usb key something happened. All good in the few first days of use until I done a dist-upgrade with apt-get. I completed it without problems or interruptions.

However now when I boot basically I see the usual Lubuntu splash screen, but without the input field where usually I type the password.

I tried in pressing up or down arrow keys to see if I can type in terminal mode, no success. All is see is the message "cryptsetup: lvm is not available" repeat an endless number of times then basically busybox mode starts.

Note: that message, "cryptsetup: lvm is not available" happened to me randomly a lot of times with other usb keys too (same cryptsetup + lubuntu in usb keys) but I still had the input field and I could simply proceed to unlock the crypto volumes without issues.

So I can't understand where is the problem right now. I don't think is in grub or boot cause otherwise it wouldn't boot at all.

That last dist-upgrade for sure caused this, I just saw that it did updated linux headers and more but I can't understand this issue.

I'm using lubuntu yakkety installed in a disk with MBR partition table if that matters at all.

What can I try to fix this? Any way to fix this issue via busybox? Im not really an expert in using that kind of terminal

---

UPDATE

Following the suggestion from the answer below I tried from a neon live cd the following:

• Use KDE Partition Manager and unlock your encrypted LUKS volume. Now you need to activate LVM. Either press F5 (refresh) in KDE Partition Manager or type sudo vgchange -ay in the terminal. Your root file system should now appear as a block device in /dev/mapper/. Again, in KDE Partition Manager it might be visually easier to see the name of your root file system. Lets say it is /dev/mapper/rootfs but you'll have to substitute correct path in the commands bellow.

• Then execute the following commands to chroot into your root file system:

  sudo mount /dev/mapper/rootfs /mnt1 sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys sudo chroot /mnt

Finally with 'sudo update-initramfs -u -k all' I get this output:

update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.8.0-32-generic
cat: /proc/cmdline: No such file or directory
/proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
Failed to set up list of device-mapper major numbers
Incompatible libdevmapper 1.02.130 (2016-07-06) and kernel driver (unknown version).
Command failed
cryptsetup: WARNING: failed to determine cipher modules to load for root
/proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
Failed to set up list of device-mapper major numbers
Incompatible libdevmapper 1.02.130 (2016-07-06) and kernel driver (unknown version).
Command failed
cryptsetup: WARNING: failed to determine cipher modules to load for swap
Warning: couldn't identify filesystem type for fsck hook, ignoring.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.8.0-30-generic
cat: /proc/cmdline: No such file or directory
/proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
Failed to set up list of device-mapper major numbers
Incompatible libdevmapper 1.02.130 (2016-07-06) and kernel driver (unknown version).
Command failed
cryptsetup: WARNING: failed to determine cipher modules to load for root
/proc/devices: fopen failed: No such file or directory
Failed to set up list of device-mapper major numbers
Incompatible libdevmapper 1.02.130 (2016-07-06) and kernel driver (unknown version).
Command failed
cryptsetup: WARNING: failed to determine cipher modules to load for swap
Warning: couldn't identify filesystem type for fsck hook, ignoring.

UPDATE 2:

Here's the new error output I get, after simply delete everything and repeat the whole procedure. I include the 2 screen I can see after grub boot menu.

After command "update-initramfs -u -k all" I see this error log:

root@lubuntu:/# update-initramfs  -u -k all
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.8.0-22-generic
device-mapper: table ioctl on root failed: No such device or address
Command failed
cryptsetup: WARNING: failed to determine cipher modules to load for root
device-mapper: table ioctl on swap failed: No such device or address
Command failed
cryptsetup: WARNING: failed to determine cipher modules to load for swap
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/kbl_guc_ver9_14.bin for module i915
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/bxt_guc_ver8_7.bin for module i915
Warning: couldn't identify filesystem type for fsck hook, ignoring.

And here you can see how lubuntu appear after boot, password input doesnt shows up

Answer 1

I suggest downloading Neon Live CD that has already packaged KDE Partition Manager 3.0 (but Ubuntu 17.04 will also have it). Then open a terminal window and run sudo apt update; sudo apt install cryptsetup lvm2 partitionmanager

• Start KDE Partition Manager and unlock your encrypted LUKS volume. Alternatively you can do it from the terminal: sudo cryptsetup open /path/to/USB_device decrypted. After this step /dev/mapper/decrypted will contain LVM PV volume.
• Now you need to activate LVM. Either press F5 (refresh) in KDE Partition Manager or type sudo vgchange -ay in the terminal. Your root file system should now appear as a block device in /dev/mapper/. Again, in KDE Partition Manager it might be visually easier to see the name of your root file system. Lets say it is /dev/mapper/rootfs but you'll have to substitute correct path in the commands bellow.

Then execute the following commands to chroot into your root file system:

• sudo mount /dev/mapper/rootfs /mnt
• sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
• sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
• sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
• sudo chroot /mnt
• sudo mount /boot

Now you need to regenerate initramfs. Try running:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all and see if it shows any errors about lvm which you need to fix. I'll try to find a bit more links later... Please post any errors you see here.