Upgrading to SLE12 SP2 with UEFI generates shim error

This document (7022915) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 4 (SLES 11 SP4)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12

Situation

When upgrading from SLES11 SP4 to SLES12 SP2 the following error is observed:

Error: Execution of command "[["/usr/sbin/shim-install", "--config-file=/boot/grub2/grub.cfg"]]" failed.
Exit code: 127
Error output: No such file or directory - /usr/sbin/shim-install

Prior to upgrading it was observed that the shim RPM package was not installed.

After completing the upgrade, the server fails to boot by not finding the swap or boot/efi devices and drops into maintenance mode and prompts for root's password.

Upgrading directly to SLES12 SP3 does NOT see this issue.

Resolution

To avoid the problem, choose one of the following:
* Make sure the SLES11 shim RPM package is installed prior to upgrading.
* Upgrade to SLES12 SP3

To resolve the boot error after it has happened:
* Use rescue mode to install the SLES12 shim package from the installation media
1. Reboot the server into rescue mode.
2. Chroot the installed system
3. Mount the SLES12 installation media to /mnt
4. cd /mnt/suse/x86_64
5. Run rpm -Uvh shim-*
6. Run grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
7. Run shim-install --config-file=/boot/grub2/grub.cfg
8. Reboot

If you are using LVM, you can expect lvm2-lvmetad errors while making grub.cfg. You can ignore the errors.

Disclaimer

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