Today's update gave me a bootloader surprise and would appreciate advice please.

English Hardware
1

Today’s update required a re-boot and when the system came up I received an error message, another which is new to me, as follows:-

Output of grub2-i386-pc-2.04-22.1.noarch.rpm %posttrans script:
update-bootloader: 2021-02-10 13:35:08 <3> update-bootloader-1353 run_command.294: ‘/usr/lib/bootloader/grub2-efi/install’ failed with exit code 15, output:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
target = x86_64-efi
+ /usr/sbin/shim-install --config-file=/boot/grub2/grub.cfg
copying /usr/share/efi/x86_64/grub.efi to /boot/efi/EFI/opensuse/grub.efi
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.
Could not delete variable: No space left on device
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The error left me with no graphics so I re-booted again as this has happened a couple of times. This time I have several warnings from the BIOS POST system and after a bit of snooping conclude that log files on the uefi partition have filled it up. The bios system startup gives me the opportunity to clear these logs, which I did and after another boot one of the warnings had gone but I still have two remaining warnings which seem to point to my boot partition within a large RAID drive.
SMART checking is very arcane with my IBM ServeRAID system and I will need to read the manual.

Meanwhile I am posting here to ask if, now I (think) I made space available on the UEFI partition, the grub.cfg will be repaired automatically and how I can check?

Budge

2

When quoting command output, please use CODE tags, not QUOTE tags.

I’m a bit puzzled. I’m not sure what was being deleted. It looks as if this is probably an error it was not a serious concern.

I have not seen log files going to the EFI partition. However, you seem to be talking about BIOS logs, and I guess they could go there.

3

Hi
Likely system NVRAM, how many entries seen from the output of;


efibootmgr -v
4

Hi Malcolm,
Here is the result of your command:-

alastair@ibmserv2:~> sudo efibootmgr -v 
[sudo] password for root:  
BootCurrent: 000E 
Timeout: 10 seconds 
BootOrder: 000E,000D,0001,0000,0002,0003,0004,0005,0006,0007,0008,0009,000A,000B,000C 
Boot0000* CD/DVD Rom    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1f,0x2)/Ata(0,0,0)/CDROM(1,0xcf,0x5c0) 
Boot0001* Floppy Disk   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,00) 
Boot0002* Hard Disk 0   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,08) 
Boot0003* PXE Network   PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(3440b59338d0,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0) 
Boot0004* Hard Disk 1   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,09) 
Boot0005* Hard Disk 2   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,0a) 
Boot0006* Hard Disk 3   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,0b) 
Boot0007* USB Storage   PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x7)/USB(4,0)/HD(1,MBR,0xdf5ee160,0x800,0x3bff800) 
Boot0008* Diagnostics   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,da) 
Boot0009* iSCSI VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,04) 
Boot000A* iSCSI Critical        VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,05) 
Boot000B* Legacy Only   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,ee) 
Boot000C* Embedded Hypervisor   VenMedia(0c588db8-6af4-11dd-a992-00197d890238,01) 
Boot000E* grub-secureboot       HD(1,GPT,5a62adf2-d3b4-45d5-abaa-1982f4195eaa,0x800,0x4e000)/File(\EFI\grub\shim.efi) 
alastair@ibmserv2:~>

I don’t much like the Critical comment but all greek to me.
Having cleared the log I hope all will be well but until I do another update which requires a re-start I will not know. Meanwhile I am still getting warnings from my RAID but have not yet gone to the RAID Bios to check. Will find time later but spent much of last evening backing up just in case.

Hope this means something to you.
Regards from a -10C but sunny Aberfeldy
Budge

5

Hi
So does the system have a floppy drive, do you pxe or legacy boot, using iscsi etc? I would go through the BIOS and see what can be disabled… do you still have a diagnostics partition?

6

Hi,
I cannot be sure of why some of the setting are as they are, for example I haven’t seen a floppy drive for a while, I have no idea what pxe is about, I cannot recall how I got to secure boot as this has evolved over a while and I do not know where iscsi fits in as all my drives are in an 8 disk RAID array.

I think what happened which prompted the first error message is because the log built within the initial startup process was full. It may have been within the uefi partiion but I cleared it using the BIOS setup which had an option to clear. I hope the subsequent updates will correct any remaining errors and none have appeared subsequently however…
I also had a BIOS warning and, having found how to get to the RAID controller, have found one drive has a developing fault. I shall check model and try and buy a replacement and meanwhile I have a hot spare in the array so should be OK.

Panic over but it is easy to forget details of the arkane innards of ancient IBM hardware when I only have to touch it once in three or four years! Thanks for the suggestions,
Budge

7

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1072618/could-not-prepare-boot-variable-no-space-left-on-device-grub-install-error-ef
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=234954

8

Hi and many thanks for the links. I have only just seen your thread but before then I had already gone into the BIOS and cleared the log. Not sure if this was the correct solution but I have been rebooting since without this error.
Interesting issue, just glad I can still boot. Now all I have is a dying disk in my array!

9

How you did this?

10

There is an option within the BIOS to clear the log so I just clicked it! I confess I do not fully know my way around the BIOS and had to ask for help getting to the RAID controller, which was to address the warning I had from a failing drive, but finding the boot problem was easy. All I hope is that this what what was required.
The hardware is an old IBM Server and is now supported by Lenovo.