Bug#1108089: grub-efi-amd64, linux-image-amd64: system fails to boot because grub config not updated after latest kernel upgrade

[Sean Whitton]

Hello,

On Tue 24 Jun 2025 at 11:31pm +02, Bastian Blank wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 22, 2025 at 05:25:07PM +0100, Sean Whitton wrote:
>> > - dpkg -s grub2-common
>>  /etc/kernel/postinst.d/zz-update-grub 5a98abefbfe97dbed36db7899251e433
>>  /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 5a98abefbfe97dbed36db7899251e433
>
> So at least you now have the correct files.

Well, they're not installed at those paths, only the *.dpkg-dist still.

>> > - ls -alR /etc
>> Hmm, that feels like something of a privacy breach.
>> Could you narrow it down?
>
> This was more fishing for possibly other lost conffiles, aka
> "*.dpkg-dist", or other weird stuff.

Okay.  There is also /etc/cryptsetup-initramfs/conf-hook.dpkg-dist.

>> > - zgrep /etc/kernel /var/log/apt/*
>> This did not produce any useful output:
>
> But this shows that those two scripts where missing for a long time, as
> they don't show up in the run-parts output.  With the default logrotate
> config for term.log (rotate monthly and keep 12) this means it is broken
> since a year.
>
> So all the calls of "update-grub" from the linux maintainer scripts have
> been missing.  But something still created new grub configs or you
> would've never booted 6.12.31.  So either there is something else on
> this system that creates grub configs or someone did it by hand.

(This might be a red herring because this machine has barely been used
over the past year.)

> You could try and see if logs contain traces of "update-grub":
>
> - grep "Found linux image" -B 10 /var/log/ -r
> - journalctl --since=2025-04-01 -g 'Found linux image'

There is exactly one trace: when apt upgraded to grub-efi-amd64 2.12-8:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Setting up grub-efi-amd64 (2.12-8) ...
[...]
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.12.31-amd64
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.12.31-amd64
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.12.27-amd64
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.12.27-amd64
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

In the [...] I got prompted about the new /etc/default/grub.

So it seems like the conffile handling that went on during that
/etc/default/grub change might have gone wrong?

-- 
Sean Whitton
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