1 device has a firmware upgrade available

Hi !

I work with RL since a long time and have it installed in many VMs inside our local VMWare infra and also at our cloud provider. We install VMs with EFI bios and secure boto enabled.

I just installed a RL10 vm for testing purposes. After the install, I get this when I log in via ssh :

1 device has a firmware upgrade available.
Run `fwupdmgr get-upgrades` for more information.

In root, with that command I can see that the VMware “UEFI dbx” has an update. Now if I do “fwupdmgr update” with the device ID, I get this :

Blocked executable in the ESP, ensure grub and shim are up to date: No valid 'EspLocation' specified in /etc/fwupd/fwupd.conf

I’m a little lost here. It’s the first time I ever encountered this even with recent UEFI VMs I’ve installed recently. All VMs are minimal install mostly.

What do I need to do here ?

What is the exact command you are using? When I do firmware updates on my Lenovo, it’s enough to just do:

fwupdmgr update

and then choose y/n to apply the update or not. There is no need to pass a device id to the command.

Either “fwupdmgr update” by itself or with the device id yields the same result :

root@nick-vm:~ # fwupdmgr get-upgrades
Failed to open polkit agent: missing executable pkttyagent in PATH
WARNING: UEFI capsule updates not available or enabled in firmware setup
See https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/wiki/PluginFlag:capsules-unsupported for more information.
VMware, Inc. VMware20,1
│
└─UEFI dbx:
  │   Device ID:          362301da643102b9f38477387e2193e57abaa590
  │   Summary:            UEFI revocation database
  │   Current version:    266
  │   Minimum Version:    266
  │   Vendor:             UEFI:Linux Foundation
  │   Install Duration:   1 second
  │   GUIDs:              d07ff664-b0e1-5f4e-a723-d7fbcbfcb94f ← UEFI\CRT_3CD3F0309EDAE228767A976DD40D9F4AFFC4FBD5218F2E8CC3C9DD97E8AC6F9D&ARCH_X64
  │                       f8ba2887-9411-5c36-9cee-88995bb39731 ← UEFI\CRT_A1117F516A32CEFCBA3F2D1ACE10A87972FD6BBE8FE0D0B996E09E65D802A503&ARCH_X64
  │   Device Flags:       • Internal device
  │                       • Updatable
  │                       • Supported on remote server
  │                       • Needs a reboot after installation
  │                       • Device is usable for the duration of the update
  │                       • Only version upgrades are allowed
  │                       • Signed Payload
  │
  └─Secure Boot dbx Configuration Update:
        New version:      371
        Remote ID:        vendor-directory
        Summary:          UEFI Secure Boot Forbidden Signature Database
        Variant:          x64
        License:          Proprietary
        Urgency:          High
        Duration:         1 second
        Release Flags:    • Trusted payload
                          • Trusted metadata
                          • Is upgrade
        Description:
        Insecure versions of the Microsoft Windows boot manager affected by Black Lotus were added to the list of forbidden signatures due to a discovered security problem. This updates the dbx to the latest release from Microsoft.

        Before installing the update, fwupd will check for any affected executables in the ESP and will refuse to update if it finds any boot binaries signed with any of the forbidden signatures. Applying this update may also cause some Windows install media to not start correctly.
        Issue:            CVE-2022-21894
        Checksum:         fc3feb015df2710fcfa07583d31b5975ee398357016699cfff067f422ab91e13

root@nick-vm:~ # fwupdmgr update
Failed to open polkit agent: missing executable pkttyagent in PATH
WARNING: UEFI capsule updates not available or enabled in firmware setup
See https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/wiki/PluginFlag:capsules-unsupported for more information.
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Upgrade UEFI dbx from 266 to 371?                                            ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ Insecure versions of the Microsoft Windows boot manager affected by Black    ║
║ Lotus were added to the list of forbidden signatures due to a discovered     ║
║ security problem. This updates the dbx to the latest release from            ║
║ Microsoft.                                                                   ║
║                                                                              ║
║ Before installing the update, fwupd will check for any affected executables  ║
║ in the ESP and will refuse to update if it finds any boot binaries signed    ║
║ with any of the forbidden signatures. Applying this update may also cause    ║
║ some Windows install media to not start correctly.                           ║
║                                                                              ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Perform operation? [Y|n]: y
Decompressing…           [                                       ]
Blocked executable in the ESP, ensure grub and shim are up to date: No valid 'EspLocation' specified in /etc/fwupd/fwupd.conf
root@nick-vm:~ # fwupdmgr update 362301da643102b9f38477387e2193e57abaa590
Failed to open polkit agent: missing executable pkttyagent in PATH
WARNING: UEFI capsule updates not available or enabled in firmware setup
See https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/wiki/PluginFlag:capsules-unsupported for more information.
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Upgrade UEFI dbx from 266 to 371?                                            ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ Insecure versions of the Microsoft Windows boot manager affected by Black    ║
║ Lotus were added to the list of forbidden signatures due to a discovered     ║
║ security problem. This updates the dbx to the latest release from            ║
║ Microsoft.                                                                   ║
║                                                                              ║
║ Before installing the update, fwupd will check for any affected executables  ║
║ in the ESP and will refuse to update if it finds any boot binaries signed    ║
║ with any of the forbidden signatures. Applying this update may also cause    ║
║ some Windows install media to not start correctly.                           ║
║                                                                              ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Perform operation? [Y|n]: y
Decompressing…           [                                       ]
Blocked executable in the ESP, ensure grub and shim are up to date: No valid 'EspLocation' specified in /etc/fwupd/fwupd.conf

I just noticed the error about polkit (which was not installed), I still get the same thing with it installed.

Do you have something in the “esp” that’s not supposed to be there?
tree /boot/efi/EFI/

Not sure !

/boot/efi/EFI/
├── BOOT
│   ├── BOOTX64.EFI
│   └── fbx64.efi
└── rocky
    ├── BOOTX64.CSV
    ├── grub.cfg
    ├── grubx64.efi
    ├── mmx64.efi
    ├── shim.efi
    ├── shimx64.efi
    └── shimx64-rocky.efi

3 directories, 9 files

/etc/fwupd/fwupd.conf is empty with only the section title for fwupd.

It’s a new install with nothing else than the minimal install on a new VM in vmware with HW 21, EFI firmware.

According to man 5 fwupd.conf:

**EspLocation=**
Set the preferred location used for the EFI system partition (ESP) path. This is typically used if UDisks was not able to automatically identify the location for any reason.

So maybe try setting it to EspLocation=/boot/efi. If does not work maybe installing udisks2will work based on this:
EspLocation option isn't recognized · Issue #6911 · fwupd/fwupd · GitHub

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Thanks,
Installing udisks2 was the solution.

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For the record, our Ansible playbooks that do a lot of stuff after a new VM is installed was removing polkit, and doing so removed udisks2. So I’ve adjusted our playbook to leave polkit and do the “fwupdmgr update” before the firsts reboots.

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