recordfail false positive causes headless servers to hang on boot by default
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
grub2 (Debian) |
Fix Released
|
Unknown
|
|||
grub2 (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Precise |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Trusty |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Utopic |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Vivid |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
grub2-signed (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Precise |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Trusty |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Utopic |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Vivid |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
[Impact]
On a headless server system, a user who does not have easy access to the console may find the system fails to come up after a power cut because the boot is blocked on a console menu prompt from grub that does not time out.
[Workaround]
Set GRUB_RECORDFAIL
[Development Fix]
Default for GRUB_RECORDFAIL
[Stable Fix]
Same as development fix.
[Regression Potential]
This fix changes user-visible behaviour deliberately because the previous behaviour led to this bug. Users of non-headless systems (eg. desktop) may miss the boot menu and come back to a failed boot or something; but if they attempt again, they should see the menu prompt for 30 seconds anyway.
[Test Case]
Steps to reproduce:
1. Boot a Vivid system installed from the server installer (not a cloud image).
2. Kill the power (or VM) while the kernel is initialising but before it has started init.
3. Power up the system (or start the VM) again.
Expected behaviour: the system should boot without user intervention.
Actual behaviour: the system hangs on the grub prompt.
[Details]
This was previously raised in bug 669481 but the solution applied then was just to add the GRUB_RECORDFAIL
An IRC discussion (http://
Colin asked for a fix in Debian, so I'll send a patch there and add a bug link. I'm also filing the bug here in order to track the fix in both Debian and Ubuntu.
Importance: High because of the impact to users on headless servers - from their perspective, this causes a system to fail to boot after an appropriately timed double power cut. I'm prompted to do this today because it just happened to me on my server, so perhaps it's more likely than I originally thought.
Related branches
description: | updated |
summary: |
- recordfail false positive causes headless servers to hang on boot + recordfail false positive causes headless servers to hang on boot by + default |
Changed in grub2 (Debian): | |
status: | Unknown → New |
Changed in grub2 (Debian): | |
status: | New → Fix Released |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Precise): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Utopic): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Vivid): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Precise): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Utopic): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Vivid): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
description: | updated |
tags: | added: patch |
There's an existing grub SRU in flight (2.02~beta2- 9ubuntu1. 2 in Trusty) so I'm deferring upload for all releases until it clears. These diffs are build tested only.