[Bug 1236625] Re: grub-install fails to set up /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg with UEFI and LVM root

[Mike Butash]

I'm running into the same issue here, similiar circumstances it sounds
like.  I've been trying to work around what seems like an utterly broken
install process (lack of mdadm, hang at trying to not activate ubuntu
one), now stuck at trying to figure out what is broken about the grub
install.

I'm using two redundant ssd's, mdraid, luks, and lvm in that order.  I'm
not sure how developers intend for a completed installation to work, but
trial and error got me with what looks like this:

/dev/sda
-part1:efi (fat32)
-part2:md0 (boot0)
-part3:md1 (luks volume)
|__md0-/boot (ext2)
|__md1 - cryptsetup
 |-lv-root0 - / (ext4)
 |-lv-usr0 - /usr (ext4)
 |-lv-var0 - /var (ext4)
 |-lv-varlog0 - /var/log (ext4)
 |-lv-home0 - /home (ext4)

Rinse/repeat with /dev/sdb

It's a pain, I have to install gdisk and mdadm in the liveos, build the
partitions, mdadm, cryptsetup, build pv/vg/lv's. format/mount the
partitions under /target (this keeps the installer from demaning to
format them stupid since I went through hassle to setup block-size,
stride, and stripe-width), and *then* run the installer.  At the
partitioning, I simply set them to be ext4 and set the directory to
boot, and choose the sda disk.

After installing, the only thing I catch is grub failing with "grub-
install dummy".  Looking at the df statistics, it's mounted all the
partitions properly, including the efi under /boot/efi, but looks like
the  grub disk parsing is just broken how it's deriving the location.

This would be much easier it worked like Arch and just simply used the
efi partition as /boot instead of /boot/efi.

Grub is setting at 2.00-19ubuntu2 once the installer is run, so should
encompass this fix.

What exactly is ubuntu expecting since the desktop installer isn't
flexible enough to do what I need it to?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1236625

Title:
  grub-install fails to set up /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg with UEFI
  and LVM root

Status in “grub2” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  If /boot/grub is on an LVM disk, and the system boots with UEFI, grub-
  install will fail to set up /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg.  Apparently
  I had this file already on my system (probably from a previous install
  attempt?) pointing at a partition I didn't even know about and didn't
  have mounted, which was letting my system continue to boot, but using
  kernels on this other partition that were no longer being updated at
  all Since this disk was not mounted as /boot.

  $ sudo /usr/sbin/grub-probe --device-map= --target=abstraction --device /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root
  lvm
  $

  grub-install:

   607   # Device abstraction module, if any (lvm, raid).
   608   devabstraction_module="`echo "${grub_device}" | xargs "$grub_probe" --device-map="${device_map}" --target=abstraction --device`"
  [...]
    641   if [ "x${devabstraction_module}" = "x" ] ; then
  [...]
    682           if [ x"$uuid" != x ]; then
    683               echo "search.fs_uuid ${uuid} root $hints " >> "${grubdir}/${grub_modinfo_target_cpu}-$grub_modinfo_platform/load.cfg"
    684               search_module=search_fs_uuid
    685           else
    686               mkdir -p "${grubdir}/uuid"
    687               file="`mktemp "${grubdir}/uuid/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"`"
    688               relfile="`${grub_mkrelpath} "$file"`"
    689               echo "search.file '${relfile}' root $hints " >> "${grubdir}/${grub_modinfo_target_cpu}-$grub_modinfo_platform/load.cfg"
    690               search_module=search_fs_file
    691           fi
  [...]
    704   else
    705       if [ x$GRUB_CRYPTODISK_ENABLE = xy ]; then
  [...]
    710       fi
  [...]
    713   fi

  So for plain LVM, nothing tells grub on the EFI boot partition where
  to find its prefix.  I guess this would've resulted in an unbootable
  install, if I hadn't happened to have an extra /boot partition hiding
  around on my system already.

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