Re: [gentoo-user] UEFI-fails to boot

[Mick]

On Thursday, 25 January 2018 10:54:28 GMT Dan Johansson wrote:
> I have bought me a shiny new Supermicro X10DRi-T motherboard with two
> Xenon-E5-2620-v3 CPUs for use as a server.
>
> I have configured the MB for UEFI-mode only and my rescuecd-USB-key
> boots find in UEFI-mode.
>
> Following the Handbook and the "EFI System Partition" handbook I have
> created the following GPT-disklayout:
>
> root@sysresccd /root % parted /dev/sda print
> Model: ATA ST1000DX002-2DV1 (scsi)
> Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
> Partition Table: gpt
> Disk Flags:
>
> Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
>  1      1049kB  3146kB  2097kB  fat32           grub  bios_grub

The above implies an MBR partition table approach to booting your OS, which a 
non-UEFI (BIOS only) MoBo will need.  However you are meant to be using UEFI 
*only* and GPT ...


>  2      3146kB  137MB   134MB   ext2            boot  boot, esp

and this partition is what should be used for an UEFI MoBo, but the fs is 
wrong.  Change it to fat32 and check with gdisk that its partition code is 
EF00, which according to your 'boot, esp' flags it should be.  This is your 
EFI System Partition (ESP).


>  3      137MB   4429MB  4292MB  linux-swap(v1)  swap
>  4      4429MB  5503MB  1074MB                  root
>  5      5503MB  1000GB  995GB                   vg
>
> Partition-1 was created like this: mkfs.fat -F 32 -n efi-boot /dev/sda1
> Partition-2 was created like this: mkfs.ext2 -T small /dev/sda2
>
> GRUB_PLATFORMS was set to "efi-64" in make.conf before emerging grub:2
>
> /boot and /boot/efi is mounted like this
> # mount | grep boot
> /dev/sda2 on /boot type ext2 (rw,relatime,errors=continue,user_xattr,acl)
> /dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat
> (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mi
> xed,errors=remount-ro)
>
> I had to remount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars in rw-mode, otherwise
> grub-install would complain.

Yes, this has been the case for some time now.  You will always need to 
remount it as rw before you change the contents of the ESP boot partition.  It 
is also mentioned here:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2


> grub-install was run like this
> "grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi"

But ... /boot/efi is not your ESP.


> And "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg" has been run without any errors.
>
> efibootmgr shows my gentoo as the first entry
> # efibootmgr
> Timeout: 1 seconds
> BootOrder: 0000,0001,0002,0003
> Boot0000  gentoo
> Boot0001  Hard Drive
> Boot0002  Network Card
> Boot0003  UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell

Use 'efibootmgr -v' to check the path of the .efi image it tries to boot and 
check the path is correct without any typos.  What you show above is only a 
label.


> But when I boot without the USB-key inserted I always "lands" in the
> Built-in EFI Shell - NO sign of GRUB.
>
> Any suggestions where I have gone wrong?
>
> KR

The ESP needs to be formatted as vfat and the GRUB boot image grubx64.efi 
should be installed there.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick