[pve-devel] [PATCH installer] install: install correct grub metapackage for the current boot-mode

[Fabian Grünbichler]

On September 28, 2023 4:05 pm, Stoiko Ivanov wrote:
> grub packages in debian split between:
> * meta-packages, which handles (among other things) the reinstalling
>   grub to the actual device/ESP in case of a version upgrade (grub-pc,
>   grub-efi-amd64)
> * bin-packages, which contain the actual boot-loaders
> The bin-packages can coexist on a system, but the meta-package
> conflict with each other (didn't check why, but I don't see a hard
> conflict on a quick glance)
> 
> Currently our ISO installs grub-pc unconditionally (and both bin
> packages, since we install the legacy bootloader also on uefi-booted
> systems). This results in uefi-systems not getting a new grub
> installed automatically upon upgrade.
> 
> Reported in our community-forum from users who upgraded to PVE 8.0,
> and still run into an issue fixed in grub for bookworm:
> https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/.123512/
> 
> Reproduced and analyzed by Friedrich.
> 
> This patch changes the installer, to install the meta-package fitting
> for the boot-mode.
> 
> We do not set the debconf variable install_devices, because in my
> tests a plain debian installed in uefi mode has this set, and a
> `grep -ri install_devices /var/lib/dpkg/info` yields only results with
> grub-pc.

this paragraph confused me phrasing-wise (what it means is that the
'install_devices' variable is only defined for 'grub-pc', and thus
(still) only set for that package/namespace)

> Reported-by: Friedrich Weber <f.weber at proxmox.com>
> Signed-off-by: Stoiko Ivanov <s.ivanov at proxmox.com>

Reviewed-by: Fabian Grünbichler <f.gruenbichler at proxmox.com>

> ---
> quickly tested by building an ISO (with the necessary modifications to
> ship both packages as .deb) and installing in legacy mode and uefi mode
> once.

did a similar test with comparing /boot before/after installing the
latest grub security update, which showed that the expected variant gets
updated (legacy if system was originally installed legacy, efi if it was
efi, both of course with no manual switch of boot mode or meta packages
in between).

as discussed off list, we might still want to improve the handling of
the "other" variant somehow, at least by detecting out-of-dateness
and/or missing meta packages somewhere after a switch over.

>  Proxmox/Install.pm | 6 ++++++
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/Proxmox/Install.pm b/Proxmox/Install.pm
> index 1117fc4..d775ac0 100644
> --- a/Proxmox/Install.pm
> +++ b/Proxmox/Install.pm
> @@ -1057,6 +1057,12 @@ _EOD
>  	    chomp;
>  	    my $path = $_;
>  	    my ($deb) = $path =~ m/${proxmox_pkgdir}\/(.*\.deb)/;
> +
> +	    # the grub-pc/grub-efi-amd64 packages (w/o -bin) are the ones actually updating grub
> +	    # upon upgrade - and conflict with each other - install the fitting one only
> +	    next if ($deb =~ /grub-pc_/ && $run_env->{boot_type} ne 'bios');
> +	    next if ($deb =~ /grub-efi-amd64_/ && $run_env->{boot_type} ne 'efi');
> +
>  	    update_progress($count/$pkg_count, 0.5, 0.75, "extracting $deb");
>  	    print STDERR "extracting: $deb\n";
>  	    syscmd("chroot $targetdir dpkg $dpkg_opts --force-depends --no-triggers --unpack /tmp/pkg/$deb") == 0
> -- 
> 2.39.2
> 
> 
> 
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