Bug#984760: grub-efi-amd64: upgrade works, boot fails (error: symbol `grub_is_lockdown` not found)

[Ryan Thoryk]

On 7/17/21 9:44 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> Hi Ryan,
> 
> So when you say "spin up a new Debian ARM VM on AWS", what exact image
> are you using here? It sounds like the build process for that image
> needs to be fixed to DTRT for the platform. Then you and other users
> won't be bitten by this problem...
> 

I found that I was using an older ARM image from last year, but that 
doesn't mean the issue was fixed later.  In AWS's community AMI section, 
the main one I tried is listed as "debian-10-arm64-20200511-260".  When 
you launch it, if you do a package upgrade it installs a newer version 
of grub.  Then running a grub-install makes it unbootable.  If you do 
the dpkg-reconfigure method, you have to choose "yes" to the "force 
extra installation" question, if you choose "no", it won't boot anymore.

I tried launching a newer AMI, titled "debian-10-arm64-20210621-680", 
and that one reboots fine if you do a "grub-install", but that's because 
it didn't install a newer version of grub, since the packages are 
recent.  I don't know what would happen if it installed a newer grub, 
you might have to look into that.  In the boot folder the EFI boot 
loader is listed as "/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTAA64.EFI", there's no 
"EFI/debian" folder.  I'm not sure what they did to generate the AMI image.

The AMI IDs I used are:
ami-00249fe66e0872181
and
ami-025a7500c83d92798

I didn't try the Marketplace one.

-- 
Ryan Thoryk
ryan at thoryk.com
ryan at tliquest.net