grub-install error: "efibootmgr: not found"

[Benjamin Curtiss]

> 1) The release of Ubuntu you are using, via 'lsb_release -rd' or System -> About Ubuntu

Description: Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
Release: 18.04

> 2) The version of the package you are using, via 'apt-cache policy pkgname' or by checking in Software Center

grub2-common version: 2.02-2ubuntu8.23
grub-efi-amd64-bin: 2.04-1ubuntu44

> 3) What you expected to happen

`grub-install --force "dummy"` to run correctly when installing into UEFI

> 4) What happened instead

`grub-install --force "dummy"` failed and output the error `grub-install error: "efibootmgr: not found"`

I create a custom ubuntu bionic installation cd, which uses the old debian-installer grub-installer component to install grub onto the target system. This grub-installer component runs the following command: `grub-install --force "dummy"`

Recently when installing this custom ubuntu installation cd on a system using UEFI, debian-installer would fail with an error message stating "Unable to install GRUB in dummy: Executing 'grub-install dummy' failed. This is a fatal error."

After some digging, I discovered the root of the issue. From the /var/log/syslog of the installation, I could see that the fatal error that occurred during the `grub-install` command was "grub-install: error: efibootmgr: not found". Digging a bit more, I discovered that on previous systems, the efibootmgr command was installed via the efibootmgr package, which was a dependency of grub-efi-amd64-bin. However, in the most recent version of grub-efi-amd64-bin, efibootmgr had been moved from "Depends" to "Recommends", and as such was not included on my custom ubuntu bionic installation cd. Thus, when grub-install tried to run the efibootmgr command, it was not available.

This is the most recent bionic version of grub-efi-amd64-bin that I've personally had installed that directly depended on efibootmgr: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/bionic/amd64/grub-efi-amd64-bin/2.02-2ubuntu8.21

...and this is the most recent bionic version of grub-efi-amd64-bin at the time of writing this bug report: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/bionic/amd64/grub-efi-amd64-bin/2.04-1ubuntu44

I noticed that the upstream version of the package changed from 2.02 to 2.04 between these two versions; I suspect that is partially the cause of this "Depends" being moved to "Recommends".

I suspect that the solution here would be one of:
- Update grub-efi-amd64-bin to re-add efibootmgr as "Depends"
- Add efibootmgr as "Depends" for grub2-common, since grub2-common is the package that provides the grub-install command that ultimately needs the efibootmgr command to be in place.
- Update grub-install to no longer depend on efibootmgr

I've attached the stderr of `grub-install --verbose --force "dummy"` as well, just in case it could be useful. There was nothing output to stdout when the command ran.

[Heinrich Schuchardt (xypron)]

After updating GRUB, does grub-install fail without efibootmgr installed?