[SOLVED] "no bootloader", grub&system works. drakboot crash

[morgano]

I think it started after I switched SSD.
(Changed it as precaution as it was much used on this workstation, no problem with it, intend to reuse it for some casually used laptop)
Booted on USB stick, I used the dd command to copy from old to new SSD.
Powered off, removed the old one, and booted.
Everything runs OK except i noticed that when installing a new kernel it do not show up in grub menu, until i manually run update-grub2.
Somehow the system do not think there is a bootolader, and drakboot crash if i let it try.

More details see bug 34563, where I was asked to also ask here in forum.

So... any ideas?

No problem for me really - but is there a bug to squash?

[doktor5000]

Hi there,

might be helpful if you could add some basic details, like what is your bootloader setup in general. UEFI or legacy MBR, do you chainload?
And please add the output of

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lsblk -f

at least and maybe the output of something like https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript

[morgano]

This is originally an old install, no chainload, and legacy MBR... if i remember correctly - if the following info is not enough tell me what to check.

Hm. I might not have connected in the new SSD in same main board sata port as the old one had, in case that order differ, so maybe sda / sdb have hanged between drives and most of system do not care as they use UUID, but boot some setup tools depends on sata port connection order?

System have one SSD for "everything"; /boot and then a LUKS encrkypted pv for LVM containing /, swap, /home.
And a big spinning drive, also recently replaced, as the old one died, with one big ext4 partition mounted below /mnt/

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[morgan@svarten ~]$ lsblk -f
NAME                  FSTYPE      FSVER    LABEL    UUID                                   FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                                       
└─sda1                ext4        1.0      IWolf4TB 2b8c504a-c3f5-44e2-93d0-bdda373b0c81        3T    12% /mnt/IWolf4TB
sdb                                                                                                       
├─sdb1                                                                                                   
├─sdb2                crypto_LUKS 2                 7988f3fc-3408-4861-82fa-1018fb905a72                 
│ └─crypt_sda2        LVM2_member LVM2 001          ajW3wM-jl3R-lbIH-1ppg-wmU9-77Jy-j7N9qP               
│   ├─vg--mga-lv_swap swap        1                 106e1443-97e4-430e-b635-71b67ea37c3e                  [SWAP]
│   ├─vg--mga-lv_root ext4        1.0               676a198c-8512-461f-83b0-e5f24b728caf       10G    69% /
│   └─vg--mga-lv_home ext4        1.0               874ecf6d-576e-4cee-ba79-d33186de7175     68,9G    81% /home
└─sdb3                ext4        1.0               40e862b7-de54-4104-a67c-190ac2b99567    215,2M    55% /boot
sr0 

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cat /etc/fstab
/dev/vg-mga/lv_root / ext4 relatime,acl 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda3 :
UUID=40e862b7-de54-4104-a67c-190ac2b99567 /boot ext4 relatime,acl 1 2
/dev/vg-mga/lv_home /home ext4 relatime,acl 1 2
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=2b8c504a-c3f5-44e2-93d0-bdda373b0c81 /mnt/IWolf4TB ext4 defaults,nofail 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/vg-mga/lv_swap swap swap defaults 0 0

[doktor5000]

I believe I remember a similar issue with grub where drakboot complained that there was no bootloader found.
Issue was that there was a device.map (which maps BIOS drives to OS devices, and for whatever reason it swapped sda and sdb). System still booted just fine, but drakboot didn't work and some other issue, have to check my notes.
edit: nope, misremembered, it was /boot/grub2/install.sh that contained the wrong device, see https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25073

Check if you have a /boot/grub/device.map and what it contains, also post it here.
Also please run

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drakboot --boot

from a terminal to see if it prints any additional output in terminal, or check via journalctl SYSLOG_FACILITY=17 or /var/log/explanations (if you have rsyslog installed) which should show what drakboot does.

I have to check whether drakboot still works for me after installation, as I've also got LVM over LUKS.
It may also be the case that you need to manually run grub-install /dev/sdb or at least grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb

[doktor5000]

Also please post your /etc/crypttab

[morgano]

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$ cat /etc/crypttab
crypt_sda2 UUID=7988f3fc-3408-4861-82fa-1018fb905a72

[morgano]

Problem solved, see bug.

I had two issues.

When i replaced drives my system and data drives SATA connections got swapped. As most things use UUID, almost everything just continued working - except Mageia tools keep track of what drive bootloader is installed to by using /dev/sda style annotation in a file.

Next i got confused by that the testing backport kernel before 6.12.43 make drakboot think system is not i386 style.

[morgano]

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$ cat /etc/crypttab
crypt_sda2 UUID=7988f3fc-3408-4861-82fa-1018fb905a72

Me/system is/are still confused as LUKS at boot time ask for "password" for /dev/sda2

But system still works.

Me too

[doktor5000]

except Mageia tools keep track of what drive bootloader is installed to by using /dev/sda style annotation in a file.

That's what I mentioned beforehand:

edit: nope, misremembered, it was /boot/grub2/install.sh that contained the wrong device, see https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25073

[morgano]

Yeah, I got hung up on the "missing" usr/lib/grub/i386-ieee1275/modinfo.sh message caused by previous issue in that backport kernel.
Anyway good thing that got solved.
Sorry about stiring up a lot of dust.