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Description of problem:
When installing RHEL 7.5 on UEFI system Anaconda correctly adds grub2-efi and shim packages as part of the installation package set (e.g., grub2-efi-x64 and shim-x64 on an x86_64 laptop).
These packages are not protected in yum (under /etc/yum/protected.d) so a simple administrator action or a script or playbook could remove these packages, rendering the system completely unbootable so that even GRUB menu is never reached (as /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/shimx64.efi would be missing).
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
RHEL 7.5
How reproducible:
Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install RHEL 7.5 on UEFI system
2. Reboot
3. yum remove grub2-efi-x64 shim-x64
Actual results:
Critical packages for system to even show GRUB menu are allowed to be removed.
Expected results:
Critical packages are protected from removal (at least on Yum level, preferable also with rpm dependencies so that "rpm -e ..." would fail as well).
I agree in principle that this should be fixed, however, I want to fully understand the implications here. Would this just affect systems where the package was installed in the first place? I wonder if this would affect a kickstart for a cloud or VM image or a system that doesn't use EFI to boot like legacy. Are we protecting grub2 already?
Anaconda should be able to differentiate between image install (how the images are created VM, Cloud...) and installation to the bare metal. So we make these changes only to the bare metal. Also I think we should be able decide this based on the information that this is a EFI installation.
Is that enough Alberto?
Before steaming ahead with a complicated approach involving logic in anaconda, can we check that there really are any problems with the simple approach of just sticking /etc/yum/protected.d/ files in grub2-efi and shim packages? Because that seems like it would be an awful lot less fragile if it turns out to work...
Comment 9RHEL Program Management
2021-02-15 07:43:31 UTC
After evaluating this issue, there are no plans to address it further or fix it in an upcoming release. Therefore, it is being closed. If plans change such that this issue will be fixed in an upcoming release, then the bug can be reopened.