[SOLVED] "Welcome to GRUB" after apt dist-upgrade

I am facing the same issue as reported here. Only in my case I am installing proxmox on top of debian like reported here https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-installation-stuck-on-welcome-to-grub.155754/

I was curious if this is issue on my laptop only, or something more UEFI? related.
So, I have created VM (in proxmox 8.3) q35/OVMF UEFI.
Installed debian from 12.9 live iso (bare minimum w/o GUI)
added proxmox repo as described on wiki
did apt update && apt full-upgrade and rebooted.

My system no longer boots. The error is different though.
I can see grub menu, but after timeout there is this error message

Loading Linux 6.1.0-31-amd64 ...
error: bad shim signature
Loading initial ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first

I cannot say if this is relevant to the issue on my laptop or not, but to me it feels like there is something wrong with the grub-* packages coming form proxmox repo.

Thanks,
MIrek
 
Just before you ask - to disable Secure Boot in a VM, hit the Esc key as it is booting to enter VM's BIOS & go into Device Manager & Secure Boot Configuration and disable Secure Boot, then F10 save, Esc, Esc, & select Reset.
 
msh said:
I am facing the same issue as reported here. Only in my case I am installing proxmox on top of debian like reported here https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-installation-stuck-on-welcome-to-grub.155754/

I was curious if this is issue on my laptop only, or something more UEFI? related.
So, I have created VM (in proxmox 8.3) q35/OVMF UEFI.
Installed debian from 12.9 live iso (bare minimum w/o GUI)
added proxmox repo as described on wiki
did apt update && apt full-upgrade and rebooted.

My system no longer boots. The error is different though.
I can see grub menu, but after timeout there is this error message

Loading Linux 6.1.0-31-amd64 ...
error: bad shim signature
Loading initial ramdisk ...
error: you need to load the kernel first

I cannot say if this is relevant to the issue on my laptop or not, but to me it feels like there is something wrong with the grub-* packages coming form proxmox repo.

Thanks,
MIrek
Click to expand...

you are trying to boot a Debian kernel with secure boot enabled but Proxmox bootloaders, that doesn't work..
 
Oh my! you are absolutely right. if I do full upgrade and install proxmox kernel everything works fine in the VM. I even do not need to disable secure boot.
My real problem is with my laptop. I tried to reproduce it in VM, and rebooted after every step to identify what exactly is failing, however it created completely different issue I was chasing. I feel so stupid :(

I am 95% sure on my laptop I did it the right way, but will repeat the installation to be sure.
 
msh said:
I am 95% sure on my laptop I did it the right way, but will repeat the installation to be sure.
Click to expand...
Skimming through that post you referred to (and replied there) - it does not look like the OP carefully followed all of the instructions & stages of the official wiki on installing Proxmox on Debian. I will respond there to OP accordingly.

Edit: One more thing, may I ask why you don't (or haven't) clean install Proxmox directly on the laptop?
 
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I can confirm on my laptop I have followed the wiki instructions and my computer cannot boot into Linux.
My steps
- disable secure boot in bios
- install debian 12.9 netinst iso (booting ventoy)
- advanced install / expert​
- pretty much just hitting enter​
- skipped desktop/gnome packages​
- computer boots fine w/o any problem
- efibootmgr shows debian entry pointing to EFI/debian/shimx64.efi
- added proxmox repo
- apt udate and full-upgrade
- in the install log I can see shimx64.efi signed is configured (can this be the problem? my bios has secure boot off)​
- I can confirm sha256 of shimx64 under /boot/... is the same as signed shimx64 under /usr/...​
- apt install proxmox-default-kernel
- systemctl reboot
- boot stops with "Welcome to GRUB!" inverse; boot splash screen logo "Lenovo" is still shown
- I guess the shim was loaded?​
- may be even grub was loaded? (who else would write the welcome message)​
- the grub menu is not present and (I guess) no attempt to load kernel​

To your question why not to use proxmox install iso. I have very non-proxmox server setup. It is a dualboot windows / linux setup. I do not want to use zfs/LVM as filesystem. I have root on btrfs and VMs on ext4. Even though I install proxmox this is still standard desktop with KDE Plasma for me. In theory I will be good with kubuntu + libvirt/virt-manager, but proxmox is soooo much better.
I have done this setup on different PCs multiple times already and it works like a charm. Until now with my new laptop.
 
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please post the output of "efibootmgr -v"
 
fabian said:
please post the output of "efibootmgr -v"
Click to expand...
As I understand he is currently not booting. Maybe he can try with rescue mode - but IDW if that will be successful on his dual-boot Windows/Debian-Proxmox setup - looks rather messy to me.
 
I can boot kubuntu live iso. I hope output from their efiboomgr works. There is 30+ entries, I have made this bit shorter removing entries like Diagnostic or Rescue and Recovery. If you need the full list, please let me know.
Code: 
BootCurrent: 0023
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,001F,0020,0021,0022,0023,0024,0025,0026,0027,0028
Boot0000* debian    HD(1,GPT,2cf9de2d-a606-4e82-a8aa-9ee6912f8f31,0x800,0x82000)/File(\EFI\debian\shimx64.efi)
      dp: 04 01 2a 00 01 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 08 00 00 00 00 00 2d de f9 2c 06 a6 82 4e a8 aa 9e e6 91 2f 8f 31 02 02 / 04 04 34 00 5c 00 45 00 46 00 49 00 5c 00 64 00 65 00 62 00 69 00 61 00 6e 00 5c 00 73 00 68 00 69 00 6d 00 78 00 36 00 34 00 2e 00 65 00 66 00 69 00 00 00 / 7f ff 04 00
Boot0001* Windows Boot Manager    HD(1,GPT,2cf9de2d-a606-4e82-a8aa-9ee6912f8f31,0x800,0x82000)/File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)574...
      dp: ...
    data: ...
...
Boot0023* USB HDD    VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,33e821aaaf33bc4789bd419f88c50803)
      dp: 03 0a 24 00 d2 38 78 bc 82 0f 60 4d 83 16 c0 68 ee 79 d2 5b 33 e8 21 aa af 33 bc 47 89 bd 41 9f 88 c5 08 03 / 7f ff 04 00
...
 
I think you might have triggered a similar issue - you might have installed our copy of grub, but are booting using Debian's efi binary..
 
I have checked on the shimx64.efi the one in /boot/efi/.... is updated and it is the secure version I have now in /usr/lib/shim so I believe this is the proxmox one. I am not sure about the other .efi files.

Let's assume this is the problem I have. Is there a way how to prevent this to happen when I am doing apt full-upgrade?

Would it be as simple as copy over grubx64.efi from /usr/... to /boot/efi/... to be sure I have proxmox version of grub?​

Or, is it necessary, in my scenario, to use proxmox version of grub at all? Would debian grub be able to boot proxmox kernel?
 
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gfngfn256 said:
Why not use separate disks for each OS & then choose at boot if you want to change to alternate OS - as this poster seems to have done successfully.
Click to expand...
This could be the way to go if everything else fails. Luckily I have possibility to add 2nd ssd into my laptop.
Just I've got 1TB ssd and there is plenty of space for me to really need the 2nd hdd.
So if possible I prefer the option 1, but thank you for the idea.
 
the easiest solution is to not share an ESP between different operating systems, and to ensure all copies of the bootloaders on the ESP are consistent. do you have access to the Debian/Proxmox rootfs now? could you share the apt term.log and history.log covering the steps taken before the failed reboot?
 
I tried reproducing your issue, but the instructions work as expected for me.. we might want to add an additional "apt install ..; grub-install" step if there is an issue that we can reproduce that would be fixed by that..
 
those look identical to mine (modulo language ;)). you could try doing the next steps as well and running "grub-install" once more afterwards, both before rebooting? that should add a "proxmox" boot entry pointing at the proxmox copy of shim/grub.
 
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