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

I'll do. So it is
  • apt update && apt full-upgrade
  • grub-install (no params)
  • apt install proxmox-default-kernel
  • efibootmgr -v (should show proxmox entry)
  • systemctl reboot
FYI the grubx64.efi I have on the ESP partition is the same as this one
0497043d657e1ca031d5acb57d8fb552c8da516394da665a54778c478479d593 /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi-signed/grubx64.efi.signed
I guess this would be the proxmox version.

Just curious in BIOS secure boot is disabled. Is it expected to use the signed versions of the .efi files?
 
if you install the signed variant, then yes. if not then not. the signed version doesn't require secure boot ;)

the sequence of steps I meant was:

Code: 
apt update && apt full-upgrade
apt install proxmox-default-kernel
apt install proxmox-ve postfix open-iscsi chrony
grub-install
efibootmgr-v
reboot

"apt full-upgrade" will already upgrade grub (and trigger a reinstall on the ESP). but proxmox-ve needs to be installed to switch over the distributor fully to "proxmox".
 
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Unfortunately it didn't help. New boot entry was created as expected. It is called `proxmox` and the path is EFI\proxmox\shimx64.efi
I have compared the .efi files under /boot for debian and proxmox and they are identical.

I am afraid the issue is with the grub itself. for some reason it fails to run on my pc :(
I guess there is no way how to see some kind of logs from the grub?
 
and what does efibootmgr say? is the "proxmox" entry selected as default?

you can tell grub to print more debug output, the question is whether it will be able to in this situation (if it only prints "welcome to grub", then that normally means it fails to load the rest of grub).
 
It shows identical entry as for debian, only debian is replaced with proxmox. both in the name as well as in path. It is entry 002 and is the first in the list.
I can see both entries in F12 boot menu a neither of them works, both leads to the same result.

if more information for grub mean to put `set debug=all` into grub.conf I have tried this and nothing additional is shown.

So it looks like it is not possible to install proxmox on my laptop? It is ThinkPad P16v G2
After all we tried it doesn't look like installing proxmox from install iso as the only OS would make any difference :(

Just trying... is there a way how to configure debian grub to be able to load proxmox kernel?
 
msh said:
After all we tried it doesn't look like installing proxmox from install iso as the only OS would make any difference
Click to expand...
I would not assume that. Firstly, you have not tried a Pure (non-Debian) Proxmox install. Secondly with all that dual-boot gadgetry, you cannot qualify the above statement.

Get another disk (external USB?) & try installing clean Proxmox on that (maybe disable/remove that other original disk for a really clean test).

msh said:
ThinkPad P16v G2
Click to expand...
AFAICT that uses one of those Intel Ultra CPUs. That maybe a problem point - as I think I read somewhere of users having issues with Proxmox on it (cannot recall the exact problems).

What graphics are you using, integrated (ARC) or dedicated (Nvidia)? That could also cause issues. Although seemingly you manage a regular Debian installation - so Proxmox should probably also work, though on occasion some GPU's require secure-boot - maybe that is the difference? IDK.

Good luck.
 
msh said:
It shows identical entry as for debian, only debian is replaced with proxmox. both in the name as well as in path. It is entry 002 and is the first in the list.
I can see both entries in F12 boot menu a neither of them works, both leads to the same result.

if more information for grub mean to put `set debug=all` into grub.conf I have tried this and nothing additional is shown.

So it looks like it is not possible to install proxmox on my laptop? It is ThinkPad P16v G2
After all we tried it doesn't look like installing proxmox from install iso as the only OS would make any difference :(

Just trying... is there a way how to configure debian grub to be able to load proxmox kernel?
Click to expand...

you could also try systemd-boot ;)
 
I have made some progress. As suggested I have installed proxmox (8.3-1) from the install iso to a USB flashdisk and it works! I am able to boot into proxmox running from my USB.

I tired to replace grub.conf on the flashdrive with grup.conf from my nvme disk and it works too! More over enabling os_prober (I know...) and running update-grub added entry into menu to boot into windows boot manager and this works too. So in the end all works exactly as I planned for, only I have to load grub (or part of it) from USB instead from internal hard drive which is kind of silly, but I think I can live with it.

Here is what I can see on the USB in the EFI partition
  • proxmox directory with binary-identical files (beside grub.conf of course) as they are on my hdd in proxmox and debian directories
  • BOOT directory with: fbx64.efi, grubx64.efi, mmx64.efi (identical as above) + BOOTx64.efi
    • I tried to copy these to my HDD - didn't help to boot from hdd
Beside the EFI partition there is as well one 1007K partition on the USB of type "BIOS boot". Looks like this is the game changer.

Would you see anything I can do to eliminate the need to boot from USB flash drive?
(I can see how 2nd hdd would do the same job as USB, but I would be using from it just 1M BIOS partition and 512M EFI partition as I do not want to run my desktop on LVM/zfs, so this is not very tempting to me.)

P.S. not related question. debian bookworm is quite old and trixie is coming soon. Are there any plans to prepare new version of proxmox based on trixie?
 
I have another update. The previous setup was done with SecureBoot disabled. I have realized I can use SecureBoot as long as I enable as well "Enable Microsoft 3rd Party CA"; I was not aware of this feature on ThinkPad BIOSes.

Here is my new situation
  • installed Ventoy with secure boot support
  • booted Ventoy and enrolled keys
  • installed debian with secure boot enabled
  • followed steps on proxmox wiki to install it on top of debian
  • after installation of kernel and reboot I am in the grub command line now!
I assume this is the same situation as before only with SecureBoot disabled from some reason the shell doesn't show up.

Now I can easily boot into debian/proxmox by entering configfile /efi/debian/grub.cfg No ideal, but by far much better then the extra USB disk.

Would you know why grub doesn't load its default config file?
I have notice BOOTX64.CSV contains shimx64.efi,proxmox,,This is the boot entry for proxmox Can this be the reason?

P.S. On my laptop the proxmox kernel/firmware doesn't recognize bluetooth and audio. I could easily fix this by adding latest intel firmware from kernel.org and https://github.com/thesofproject/sof-bin. Not sure what is your updates policy, but by me newer pve-firmware would be appreciated ;)
 
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We have not run into this problem (yet)

But should we set the grub2/force_efi_extra_removable to true on all proxmox installs anyway to avoid problems in the future? Regardless how it is setup?

Here is the config on one install. Booting (EFI) via a ZFS mirror.
------------------------------------------------------------------
efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0005
BootOrder: 0005,0004,0001,0003
Boot0001* VMware ESXi HD(1,GPT,6da8d63f-c4b5-4447-a335-dca54d197aea,0x40,0x32000)/File(\EFI\VMware\safeboot64.efi)
Boot0003* Integrated NIC 1 Port 1 Partition 1 VenHw(3a191845-5f86-4e78-8fce-c4cff59f9daa)
Boot0004* Linux Boot Manager HD(2,GPT,c11f89e4-2140-4591-b14b-8f270817ae8c,0x800,0x200000)/File(\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi)
Boot0005* Linux Boot Manager HD(2,GPT,aa5f13cb-756f-4bcd-b9c7-0f5ac07b792e,0x800,0x200000)/File(\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi)
MirroredPercentageAbove4G: 0.00
MirrorMemoryBelow4GB: false
------------------------------------------------------------------


And here is an other one. Booting (EFI) via a "normal" LVM
------------------------------------------------------------------
efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0007
BootOrder: 0007,0000
Boot0000* Integrated NIC 1 Port 1 Partition 1 VenHw(3a191845-5f86-4e78-8fce-c4cff59f9daa)
Boot0001* Hard drive C: VenHw(d6c0639f-c705-4eb9-aa4f-5802d8823de6)............................f.........................................................A.....................P.E.R.C. .H.3.3.0. .M.i.n.i.(.b.u.s. .1.8. .d.e.v. .0.0.)...
Boot0002* IBA 40G Slot 1900 v1130 BBS(128,IBA 40G Slot 1900 v1130,0x0)......................................................................................A.....................I.B.A. .4.0.G. .S.l.o.t. .1.9.0.0. .v.1.1.3.0...
Boot0003* Virtual Floppy BBS(Floppy,Virtual Floppy,0x90)................/.@........./.@...................................upy...upy....-......A......................................V.i.r.t.u.a.l. .F.l.o.p.p.y...
Boot0004* Virtual CD/DVD BBS(CDROM,Virtual CD/DVD,0x90)..................@...........@...................................HVD...HVD....-......A......................................V.i.r.t.u.a.l. .C.D./.D.V.D...
Boot0007* proxmox HD(2,GPT,042fb869-de6f-4b04-8412-4ba46886fb02,0x800,0x200000)/File(\EFI\proxmox\shimx64.efi)
MirroredPercentageAbove4G: 0.00
MirrorMemoryBelow4GB: false
 
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if the upgrade doesn't print the warning, then your ESP doesn't contain a removable boot entry and you don't need to instruct to grub packages to manage it either.
 
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@msh great you found some workaround(s) for your setup ;) as we don't really support dual booting on our end, I don't think spending much more time debugging this is warranted.

please file a bug for pve-firmware updates (include all the relevant details - which hardware, which firmware files are missing for which module, ...)

and yes, the next major PVE/PBS/PMG/PDM versions will be based on Trixie, but that is still a bit in the future ;)
 
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In the end ultimate success :D I was able get my computer booting the way as it should. At this moment after all my attempts I no longer have standard environment on my laptop, so hard to say what caused my latest problem, but maybe this bit of information can help somebody.

My EFI entry is debian pointing to EFI/debian/ directory, but the grubx64.efi over there has baked in path to grub.cfg as EFI/proxmox
I have from my previous experiments EFI/proxmox directory but with obsolete grub.cfg and this is why the menu didn't show up
Easiest way to fix this for me was to copy EFI/debian/grub.cfg to EFI/proxmox/

The way I checked for the config path was strings EFI/debian/grubx64.efi | grep EFI and the last string is the path.
 
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