On Thu, Oct 06, 2016 at 07:45:36AM +0000, Jonathan Quick wrote: > Package: installation-reports > Version: 2.58 > Severity: important > > Dear Maintainer, > > Whilst installing from a (Jessie) 8.6 netboot installer the GRUB installation > step failed, leaving the system unbootable. > > -- Package-specific info: > > Boot method: network > Image version: 20150422+deb8u4+b1/images/netboot/debian-installer/amd64/linux > Date: 6 October 2016 08:30 SAST > > Machine: SuperMicro SuperServer > Partitions: <df -Tl will do; the raw partition table is preferred> > Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type > /dev/sdak1 2048 119883775 119881728 57.2G 83 Linux > /dev/sdak2 119885822 125044735 5158914 2.5G 5 Extended > /dev/sdak5 119885824 125044735 5158912 2.5G 82 Linux swap / Solaris > > Base System Installation Checklist: > [O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it > > Initial boot: [O] > Detect network card: [O] > Configure network: [O] > Detect CD: [ ] > Load installer modules: [O] > Clock/timezone setup: [O] > User/password setup: [O] > Detect hard drives: [O] > Partition hard drives: [O] > Install base system: [O] > Install tasks: [O] > Install boot loader: [E] > Overall install: [O] after recovery via rescue mode > > Comments/Problems: > > This was an installation of only the standard system plus a SSH server - no > desktop. > Generally the installation went smoothly apart from the boot-loader step > which failed with no information on why. > Trying a full desktop install gave the same problem (after a longer wait of > course). > > Using the rescue mode (once I realised out that shells in the text mode > intaller didn't work and switched to the graphical > one) I discovered that the grub2 package and its dependencies had not been > installed. Once I had installed those packages, > I was then able to use 'grub-install sdak' and 'update-grub' to get things > going. Only after doing this did the option to > reinstall GRUB appear in the rescue menu. Now that GRUB is installed, the > machine boots fine into a working system. > > Note this system has 36 4TB hard disk drives attached via a HBA (mpt3sas) and > one 64GB SSD attached to the motherboard SATA > controller to which I was actually installing, hence the '/dev/sdak' disk > designation. > > A test installation using a (Wheezy) 7.11 installer ran just fine without > showing this problem, but didn't see the HBA > and its attached disks.
Sounds like the regex for matching valid disks in the installer handling grub install isn't expecting 2 letter names, which is certainly an unusual case, and if your system had put the target disk first rather than last, you wouldn't have had a problem either. Of course if wheezy didn't see the other disks that would have solved the problem for it. Probably this part of grub-installer is the problem: case $prefix in /dev/md) disc_offered_devfs="$bootfs" ;; /dev/mapper) disc_offered_devfs="$bootfs" ;; /dev/[hsv]d[a-z0-9]|/dev/xvd[a-z]|/dev/cciss/c[0-9]d[0-9]*|/dev/ida/c[0-9]d[0-9]*|/dev/rs/c[0-9]d[0-9]*|/dev/mmcblk[0-9]|/dev/nvme[0-9]*n[0-9]*|/dev/ad[0-9]*|/dev/da[0-9]*) disc_offered_devfs="$prefix" ;; *) disc_offered_devfs=$(echo "$bootfs_nodevfs" | sed "s:\(.*\)/.*:\1/disc:") ;; esac /dev/[hsv]d[a-z0-9] will match /dev/sda through /dev/sdz, but NOT /dev/sdak. If it added /dev/sd[a-z][a-z] as well, it should work for you. So maybe: /dev/[hsv]d[a-z0-9]|/dev/sd[a-z][a-z]|/dev/xvd[a-z]|/dev/cciss/c[0-9]d[0-9]*|/dev/ida/c[0-9]d[0-9]*|/dev/rs/c[0-9]d[0-9]*|/dev/mmcblk[0-9]|/dev/nvme[0-9]*n[0-9]*|/dev/ad[0-9]*|/dev/da[0-9]*) Not sure if other places need fixing too. -- Len Sorensen