prompted for installation target, even though already known

[Jamin W. Collins]

Binary package hint: grub2

During a dist-upgrade, I was presented with a debconf style dialog asking where to install grub-pc's boot loader. This question had already been answered during the upgrade from karmic and in fact the desired devices were already selected. This resulted in an interruption for what would have otherwise been a hands free installation/update.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: grub-pc 1.98-1ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-server 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-server x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue May 11 07:13:32 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: grub2

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

If you have multiple disks (you don't say whether this is the case or not) then I'm afraid we don't know this accurately because in Karmic we didn't record it in a stable format.

[Jamin W. Collins (jcollins)]

I do have multiple disks, 3x SATA, that make up the RAID1 (with spare) volume of the system. However, I don't see how that should make a difference. The three target disks were already specified during the upgrade and where all selected during the recent reprompt. Shouldn't the package upgrade simply use the existing recorded answers if present?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

If *all* the disks were selected then I agree there should have been no need to prompt you. If only some of them were selected then we don't accurately know which were which.

Could you give a detailed description of your disk/partition layout, preferably with parted output and the like, and the output of 'sudo debconf-show grub-pc'?

[Jamin W. Collins (jcollins)]

The system has 3 internal SATA drives: 2x 250G Western Digital drives, 1x 1TB Western Digital. It also has an a 2TB Seagate drive connected via eSATA. The three internal drives are combined into RAID1 and RAID5 arrays. Let me know if any further information would be useful.

md0 - /boot
md1 - /var/log
md2 - /
md3 - LVM housing VM drives

# for DEV in /dev/sd?; do parted ${DEV} print; done
Model: ATA WDC WD10EADS-65L (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 247MB 247MB primary raid
 2 247MB 1000GB 1000GB extended
 5 247MB 995MB 748MB logical linux-swap(v1)
 6 995MB 1999MB 1003MB logical raid
 7 1999MB 10.0GB 8003MB logical raid
 8 10.0GB 250GB 240GB logical raid
 9 250GB 1000GB 750GB logical ext3

Model: ATA WDC WD2500AAKS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 247MB 247MB primary ext4 boot, raid
 2 247MB 250GB 250GB extended
 5 247MB 995MB 748MB logical linux-swap(v1)
 6 995MB 1999MB 1003MB logical ext4 raid
 7 1999MB 10.0GB 8003MB logical ext4 raid
 8 10.0GB 250GB 240GB logical

Model: ATA WDC WD2500AAKS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 247MB 247MB primary ext4 raid
 2 247MB 250GB 250GB extended
 5 247MB 995MB 748MB logical linux-swap(v1)
 6 995MB 1999MB 1003MB logical ext4 raid
 7 1999MB 10.0GB 8003MB logical ext4 raid
 8 10.0GB 250GB 240GB logical

Model: ATA ST32000542AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 2000GB 2000GB primary ext3

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
md2 : active raid1 sdc7[1] sda7[2](S) sdb7[0]
      7815488 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md3 : active raid5 sdb8[0] sda8[2] sdc8[1]
      468856832 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]

md0 : active raid1 sdb1[1] sda1[2](S) sdc1[0]
      240832 blocks [2/2] [UU]

md1 : active raid1 sda6[2](S) sdb6[1] sdc6[0]
      979840 blocks [2/2] [UU]

unused devices: <none>

# pvs
  PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
  /dev/md3 vms lvm2 a- 447.13g 79.60g

# debconf-show grub-pc
  grub-pc/kopt_extracted: false
  grub2/kfreebsd_cmdline:
* grub-pc/install_devices: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD10EADS-65L5B1_WD-WCAU4A142401, /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500AAKS-00VSA0_WD-WMART1780265, /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500AAKS-00VSA0_WD-WMART1625604
  grub-pc/postrm_purge_boot_grub: false
  grub-pc/disk_description:
* grub2/linux_cmd...

[Jamin W. Collins (jcollins)]

Hit by this again on the latest grub update.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]