[Bug 1237519] Re: Grub2 fails to install to non-standard device path

[Igor Sharovar]

I wrote e-mail to Colin Watson who maintains "grub-installer". Below are my message to Colin and his replay. He suggest to me to open a bug ticket but for unknown for me reasons I failed to do this. However I send to him a syslog file to Colin. He may already did some work.
"
> I am writing this e-mail because you are an owner of Ubuntu 
> grub-installer.
> I work in FusionIO. Our company develops PCI SSDs. We tries to use 
> Ubuntu 12.04 x64 server on our device. We want to install Ubuntu on 
> FusionIO devices and boot. We have a problem during installing Ubuntu.
> The installer recognizes our disk as /dev/fioa device, which is non 
> standard name but it works fine on non-boot disk, installs almost 
> everything but failed in the end of installation. The error is 
> following
> "main-menu[402]: WARNING **: Configuring 'grub-installer' failed with 
> error code 1
> "main-menu[402]: WARNING **: menu item 'grub-installer' failed.

If you're happy for this to be public (which is best - it means there's an audit trail for any change), could you file a bug and attach the full installer syslog to it, and then give me a reference to the bug number?
Otherwise, I'll at least need the syslog.

> The installer creates a EFI system partition, but there is nothing in this partition.
> I believe the problem is in our name "/de/fioa" which grub-installer doesn't like.
> I analyzed the code and tried to add "/dev/fioa" in grub-installer/grub-installer file but there is not success yet.

It's quite possible that GRUB itself needs some adjustment.  I'd be happy to have a look given a full log.
"

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1237519

Title:
  Grub2 fails to install to non-standard device path

Status in “grub2” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Running the Ubuntu Server installer in UEFI mode fails to install the
  Grub bootloader.  Attached is the syslog output that shows grub-
  installer failed with error code 1.  I have seen this on Ubuntu 12.04,
  12.10, and 13.04.  I believe the problem is that Grub is looking for
  device paths that match something like '/dev/sdX' or '/dev/hdX' but
  the device I am installing to does not follow that convention.

  The reason I believe it is looking for specific devices paths is if,
  during installation after my device has been partitioned, I escape
  into the shell (using alt+f2) and create a hard link from my device
  name and its partitions, to a device name that matches 'sdX', then
  Grub begins to install.  For example, if my device name is /dev/fioa
  and has partitions /dev/fioa1, /dev/fioa2, and /dev/fioa3, I map those
  partitions to something like /dev/sdc, /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdc2, and
  /dev/sdc3 and continue with the installation onto /dev/sdc.  By doing
  this, Grub will begin to install on the device.

  Possibly useful background information:

  - The operating system and all files install just fine without
  problem, it is the last step of installing the bootloader that fails.

  - In order to have the device recognized during installation, I either
  need to run 'insmod' from a terminal or we have to manually modify
  initrd to include our .ko file because it is not a standard disk
  driver.  Using either method does not affect the outcome of Grub2
  failing to install.

  - Even though grub begins to install after creating the hard links
  mentioned above, it does not finish successfully due to the linked
  paths (e.g. /dev/sdc) not being in the device map.  That is a separate
  issue, but may be expected behavior and would likely need a separate
  ticket if it needed to be reported at all.

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