Why does Grub 2.06 shipped with Fedora lack the smbios module/command?

Hi all,

Since grub 2.06, the smbios command provides the value of a field in an SMBIOS structure like the system manufacturer and so on. it is very similar to the Linux dmidecode command . It is very useful to retrieve harware information on the system being booted.

But the grub2 package provided by Fedora and which is booting the system lacks the built-in smbios module/command .

Thus using the built-in /boot/efi/fedora/grubx64.efi file that is booting the system in UEFI secure boot mode, it is impossible to load the smbios module (secure boot policy) hence to use the command in a grub.cfg file

Does anyone know why this command has been left out ?

Thanks

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You can install the available smbios commands with dnf install smbios-utils.

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I looked through the grub2 package sources, and a git grep doesn’t give me any results for smbios. So I don’t think it was ever part of the grub2 package?

If you’re saying that it should be installed alongside grub2, the maintainers can update the grub2 package to “require” smbios-utils. Best to file a bug for this so you can speak to the maintainers directly.

I see there’s a bug filed for this already—worth adding a comment there:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1815924

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Hi @ankursinha

The smbios command/module seems to be part of grub2 since version 2.06.

I found it in the official gnu/grub2.06 manual:

Is it possible that the Fedora grub2 package sources, may differ in commands or features from gnu/grub2 for the same version (2.06) ?

Hi @vwbusguy

I have a hard time understanding your answer. smbios-utils would be a Fedora rpm provinding a command in terminal.

The smbios command I am referring to is part of grub2.06: GNU GRUB Manual 2.06

Thus this command is for use at the bootloader level so way before Fedora kernel, initram, and use space are even loaded

Thanks

The sources will be the same, but the packager may decide what bits are to be provided in the Fedora package. That’s why, speaking to the maintainer is the best way forward here.

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Thank you @ankursinha

The Fedora grub2 package sources, is also different form GitHub - rhboot/grub2 at fedora-36 which in this case does provide the smbios command in here.

Can’t figure why this command it is left aside … Security concern if UEFI is run in Secure mode ?

A beginner among Fedora Community: I do not know:

  1. How to add a comment to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1815924 because using my Fedora Account, would reveal my main mail address. By the way the last comment being 7+ month old (2021-06-17) on this bugzilla thread.

  2. How to contact @pjones the maintainer of fedora’s grub2 package source Peter Jones using Fedora Project tools Maybe through his Fedora user page ? (besides a direct E-mail…)

Bugzilla does require e-mail addresses, there’s no way around that unfortunately. What a lot of us do is have a different e-mail address for Fedora (and other public forums) that’s separate from our private e-mail addresses.

A Fedora project member can be contacted using <Fedora username>@fedoraproject.org, however, private e-mails and communication is discouraged in the community. That’s why we suggested you drop a comment on the bug.

Thanks @ankursinha!
Being a new user in the Community, could I use as, an alias to my real mail address, my Fedora-username@fedoraproject.org e-mail address to contact a package maintainer through a bug request filing ?

it’s only an alias, so you can’t use it to actually send out e-mails because there’s no mailbox attached to it (so no SMTP server and all that). You can set the “reply-to” field in your client so that people will reply to your alias but the e-mail will need to be sent from your actual e-mail mailbox.

I think the primary use case here is that people don’t need to go find our private e-mail addresses to contact us—if they know our Fedora usernames, they can just use our e-mail aliases. This also makes it easier for all the infrastructure—it doesn’t need to know our e-mail addresses, just works with the alias.

The SMTP is a relay that forwards to whatever address you specify. There’s no IMAP, etc. I have it set as an external address in GMail and an identity in thunderbird and both of those ways let me send “from” my fp.o email address.

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