Ubuntu
grub2 package

Updates failing because "db is empty"

Bug #1814575 reported by Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre
14
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
grub2 (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre
Bionic
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Cosmic
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
grub2-signed (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Bionic
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

[SRU Justification]
There is a behavior regression on some EFI systems with specific firmwares (right now, Lenovo, X230 and newer are known to be affected), where mokutil --export --db returns "db is empty" and can lead to no .der certificates being exported at all. Further steps in grub-check-signatures would thus error out.

[Test case]
Run at least once on a Lenovo T450 (cyphermox).

1. Install a system using UEFI mode.
2. Reboot
3. Fully upgrade system.
4. Run 'sudo /usr/share/grub-check-signatures'; verify that it fails (openssl errors and "db is empty").
5. Install grub* from -proposed.
6. Verify that the upgrade completes successfully.

[Regression potential]
The test case is sufficient to verify all possible paths work correctly after the SRU, provided it is run on both non-affected systems and affected systems.

Fix this:

On some Thinkpads (up to now, no other manufacturers appear to show this), db can be reported to be empty even though it's not. It seems to be a firmware issue, but it's one we can work around.

So, fix this type of failure:

Setting up grub-efi-amd64-signed (1.112+2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu10) ...
db is empty
Can't open *.der for reading, No such file or directory
140033418155072:error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory:../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:72:fopen('*.der','rb')
140033418155072:error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file:../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:79:
unable to load certificate
dpkg: error processing package grub-efi-amd64-signed (--configure):
 installed grub-efi-amd64-signed package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent processing triggers for shim-signed:
 shim-signed depends on grub-efi-amd64-signed | grub-efi-arm64-signed; however:
  Package grub-efi-amd64-signed is not configured yet.
  Package grub-efi-arm64-signed is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package shim-signed (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
Errors were encountered while processing:
 grub-efi-amd64-signed
 shim-signed
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

See original description
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
assignee: nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu11

---------------
grub2 (2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu11) disco; urgency=medium

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * debian/grub-check-signatures: properly account for DB showing as empty on
    some broken firmwares: Guard against mokutil --export --db failing, and do
    a better job at finding the DER certs for conversion to PEM format.
    (LP: #1814575)

  [ Steve Langasek ]
  * debian/patches/quick-boot-lvm.patch: checking the return value of
    'lsefi' when the command doesn't exist does not do what's expected, so
    instead check the value of $grub_platform which is simpler anyway.
    LP: #1814403.

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Mon, 04 Feb 2019 17:51:15 -0500

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote : Please test proposed package

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2 into cosmic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu8.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-cosmic to verification-done-cosmic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-cosmic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Cosmic):
status: New → Fix Committed
tags: added: verification-needed verification-needed-cosmic
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2-signed into cosmic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2-signed/1.110.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-cosmic to verification-done-cosmic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-cosmic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2 into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02-2ubuntu8.11 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Bionic):
status: New → Fix Committed
tags: added: verification-needed-bionic
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2-signed into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2-signed/1.93.12 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Changed in grub2-signed (Ubuntu Bionic):
status: New → Fix Committed
Changed in grub2-signed (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2 into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02-2ubuntu8.12 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2-signed into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2-signed/1.93.13 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

Revision history for this message
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote :

Verification-done for bionic using grub2/2.02-2ubuntu8.12, grub2-signed/1.93.13:

I have checked that running upgrade in the presence of an unsigned kernel leads to a failing upgrade, and if no unsigned/incorrectly signed kernel is present the upgrade will work fine. Similarly, running /usr/share/grub/grub-check-signatures behaves as expected, warning if the presence of an unsigned kernel is found. System appears to behave correctly despite "db is empty" error when running mokutil --db separately.

tags: added: verification-done-bionic
removed: verification-needed-bionic
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 2.02-2ubuntu8.12

---------------
grub2 (2.02-2ubuntu8.12) bionic; urgency=medium

  * debian/grub-check-signatures: make sure grub-check-signatures conserves
    its execute bit.

grub2 (2.02-2ubuntu8.11) bionic; urgency=medium

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * debian/grub-check-signatures: properly account for DB showing as empty on
    some broken firmwares: Guard against mokutil --export --db failing, and do
    a better job at finding the DER certs for conversion to PEM format.
    (LP: #1814575)
  * debian/patches/linuxefi_disable_sb_fallback.patch: Disallow unsigned
    kernels if UEFI Secure Boot is enabled. If UEFI Secure Boot is enabled
    and kernel signature verification fails, do not boot the kernel. Patch
    from Linn Crosetto. (LP: #1401532)

  [ Steve Langasek ]
  * debian/patches/quick-boot-lvm.patch: checking the return value of
    'lsefi' when the command doesn't exist does not do what's expected, so
    instead check the value of $grub_platform which is simpler anyway.
    LP: #1814403.

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Thu, 07 Feb 2019 18:20:04 -0500

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Bionic):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote : Update Released

The verification of the Stable Release Update for grub2 has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package grub2-signed - 1.93.13

---------------
grub2-signed (1.93.13) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Rebuild against grub2 2.02-2ubuntu8.12.

grub2-signed (1.93.12) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Rebuild against grub2 2.02-2ubuntu8.11.
    (LP: #1401532) (LP: #1814403) (LP: #1814575)

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Thu, 07 Feb 2019 19:28:09 -0500

Changed in grub2-signed (Ubuntu Bionic):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote :

Verification-done on cosmic with grub2/2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu8.2, grub2-signed/1.110.2:

Upgrading grub in the presence of an unsigned kernel (copied existing vmlinuz and ran 'sbattach --remove') leads to a failing upgrade, as expected. Despite 'mokutil --export --db' returning an error "db is empty", if all kernels present are correctly signed the upgrade completes without issues.

tags: added: verification-done-cosmic
removed: verification-needed verification-needed-cosmic
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu8.2

---------------
grub2 (2.02+dfsg1-5ubuntu8.2) cosmic; urgency=medium

  [ Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre ]
  * debian/grub-check-signatures: properly account for DB showing as empty on
    some broken firmwares: Guard against mokutil --export --db failing, and do
    a better job at finding the DER certs for conversion to PEM format.
    (LP: #1814575)

  [ Steve Langasek ]
  * debian/patches/quick-boot-lvm.patch: checking the return value of
    'lsefi' when the command doesn't exist does not do what's expected, so
    instead check the value of $grub_platform which is simpler anyway.
    LP: #1814403.

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Tue, 05 Feb 2019 11:05:56 -0500

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Cosmic):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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