Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 67580
Updating /boot makes grub unbootable
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:38:02 EDT
On 2 machines, one notebook and one desktop, installing my own rpm: # rpm -ql BOOT /boot/initrd-2.4.18-5.2BOOT /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.2BOOT /var/lib/BOOT /var/lib/BOOT/addinitrd /var/lib/BOOT/kickstart.sample with "rpm -U BOOT-...." makes grub unbootable. On notebook, I got GRUB Geom Error On desktop, I got GRUB Running "grub-install" again fixes the problem. Is that normal?
# rpm -q --scripts BOOT postinstall scriptlet (through /bin/sh): cat <<EOF If you use LILO as the boot loader, please add image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.2BOOT label=BOOT initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-5.2BOOT to /etc/lilo.conf and run $ lilo $ lilo -R BOOT Then reboot the machine. It will start the installation process automatically. If you use grub as your boot loader, please add title Red Hat Linux (Install/Upgrade) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.2BOOT initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.2BOOT to /boot/grub/grub.conf. Then reboot the machine and choose the "Red Hat Linux (Install/Upgrade)" option at the grub menu to start the installation process. EOF
I don't have any problems with this here; we do it all the time as part of our normal testing framework. What filesystem type are you using for /boot?
I am using ext3 on /boot. It happened twice again. One is I removed an image and add a new image in /boot. I edited grub.conf to reflect that. After reboot, grub would reboot the machine over and over again. I had to boot CD into rescue mode and run grub-install to fix it. My grub.conf: default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-5.3) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.3 ro root=/dev/sda2 hdd=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.3.img title Red Hat Linux (Install/Upgrade) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.3BOOT ks=hd:sda2/var/lib/BOOT/upgrade.ks initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.3BOOT I changed the second entry by hand. Another time is I upgraded the kernel with rpm. I was dropped into a grub prompt after reboot. I had to run grub-install also. I have default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-5.4) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.4 ro root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.4.img title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-5.2 ACPI) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.2acpi ro root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.2acpi.img title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-5.2 Custom) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.2custom ro root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.2custom.img title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-5.2 PCMCIA) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.2pcmcia ro root=/dev/hda3 hdc=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.2pcmcia.img title Red Hat Linux (Install/Upgrade) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-5.3BOOT ks=hd:hda3/var/lib/BOOT/upgrade.ks initrd /initrd-2.4.18-5.3BOOT title Windows XP rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1
This works fine for me here in testing with current packages. FWIW, I recommend using grubby to do the addition to the config files as it can handle updating both lilo and grub config files correctly (see /sbin/new-kernel-pkg for how it's done on kernel package installs)