[Bug 1839873] [NEW] ubiquity's grub-installer script fails during installation of grub-efi-amd64-signed package

[Efe Çiftci]

Public bug reported:

I've encountered this bug during installation of KDE neon (uses Ubuntu
18.04 LTS as base system) on my computer, but it seems this bug is
rather caused by the ubiquity package itself.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Have secure boot enabled in BIOS settings,
2. Start Ubuntu/etc installation in UEFI mode and with internet access,
3. Let the installer to download updates during installation,
4. Use manual partitioning to specify the root partition on the disk, where an EFI partition already exists.

What you expect to happen: The system is successfully installed on a
secure boot enabled computer in EFI mode.

What happened instead: GRUB installation fails, thus the installation
fails.

Details:
After the root filesystem is copied, the installer continues with other tasks such as apt update, user accounts management, grub installation, etc. but it failed every time during the bootloader installation stage.

By examining the syslog of live environment during installation, I have
seen installation of grub-efi-amd64-signed package (in the target
system) has failed. I've traced the problem and pinpointed it to the
following section in the /usr/share/grub-installer/grub-installer
(provided by ubiquity package) script:

case "$grub_package" in
   *)
	# Will pull in os-prober based on global setting for Recommends
	apt-install $grub_package || exit_code=$? 
	case $grub_package in
	    *-signed)
		apt-install shim-signed || true
		apt-install grub-pc || true
		;;
	esac
	;;
esac

On my computer, the "apt-install $grub_package" command tries installing
grub-efi-amd64-signed package into the target environment, but this
package fails during configuration stage because it needs shim-signed
and mokutil packages to be already installed on the target environment
first. Instead, the installer installs shim-signed package after grub-
efi-amd64-signed package, hence the error occurs.

Proposals for fixing the problem:
1. Modify /usr/share/grub-installer/grub-installer script so that "apt-install $grub_package || exit_code=$?" line is executed after the case block where shim-signed package is installed (this modification has solved the problem for me and the system is installed successfully without any further errors)

or,

2. Make shim-signed package a dependency for grub-efi-amd64-bin package.

I'm currently unavailable to attach any syslog files because I've
already fixed the problem before installation and therefore my
/var/log/installer/syslog has no mentions of an error at all. I can
still attach it if required though, or I can attempt a failed
installation again to create a syslog which contains the error I've
mentioned (if I find a spare disk to install).

** Affects: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1839873

Title:
  ubiquity's grub-installer script fails during installation of grub-
  efi-amd64-signed package

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I've encountered this bug during installation of KDE neon (uses Ubuntu
  18.04 LTS as base system) on my computer, but it seems this bug is
  rather caused by the ubiquity package itself.

  Steps to reproduce:
  1. Have secure boot enabled in BIOS settings,
  2. Start Ubuntu/etc installation in UEFI mode and with internet access,
  3. Let the installer to download updates during installation,
  4. Use manual partitioning to specify the root partition on the disk, where an EFI partition already exists.

  What you expect to happen: The system is successfully installed on a
  secure boot enabled computer in EFI mode.

  What happened instead: GRUB installation fails, thus the installation
  fails.

  Details:
  After the root filesystem is copied, the installer continues with other tasks such as apt update, user accounts management, grub installation, etc. but it failed every time during the bootloader installation stage.

  By examining the syslog of live environment during installation, I
  have seen installation of grub-efi-amd64-signed package (in the target
  system) has failed. I've traced the problem and pinpointed it to the
  following section in the /usr/share/grub-installer/grub-installer
  (provided by ubiquity package) script:

  case "$grub_package" in
     *)
  	# Will pull in os-prober based on global setting for Recommends
  	apt-install $grub_package || exit_code=$? 
  	case $grub_package in
  	    *-signed)
  		apt-install shim-signed || true
  		apt-install grub-pc || true
  		;;
  	esac
  	;;
  esac

  On my computer, the "apt-install $grub_package" command tries
  installing grub-efi-amd64-signed package into the target environment,
  but this package fails during configuration stage because it needs
  shim-signed and mokutil packages to be already installed on the target
  environment first. Instead, the installer installs shim-signed package
  after grub-efi-amd64-signed package, hence the error occurs.

  Proposals for fixing the problem:
  1. Modify /usr/share/grub-installer/grub-installer script so that "apt-install $grub_package || exit_code=$?" line is executed after the case block where shim-signed package is installed (this modification has solved the problem for me and the system is installed successfully without any further errors)

  or,

  2. Make shim-signed package a dependency for grub-efi-amd64-bin
  package.

  I'm currently unavailable to attach any syslog files because I've
  already fixed the problem before installation and therefore my
  /var/log/installer/syslog has no mentions of an error at all. I can
  still attach it if required though, or I can attempt a failed
  installation again to create a syslog which contains the error I've
  mentioned (if I find a spare disk to install).

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