Grubby Fatal Error: Unable to Find a Suitable Template
Updated:
The system update using the “yum update” command on certain Linux systems triggered the error message “Grubby Fatal Error: Unable to Find a Suitable Template”. This post aims to detail the resolution process for this issue.
Details of Grubby Fatal Error
I found that this problem affected the following DigitalOcean Linux VPS images:
- CentOS 5.x, 32-bit and 64-bit
- CentOS 6.x, 32-bit and 64-bit
- CentOS 7.x, 32-bit and 64-bit
- Fedora 17.x, 32-bit and 64-bit
- Fedora 18.x, 32-bit and 64-bit
- Fedora 19.x, 32-bit and 64-bit
For those of you who have never heard of DigitalOcean, it is a Linux VPS cloud hosting provider established in New York City several years ago. It has grown rapidly since its inception and is now one of the largest cloud hosting providers in the world. You can read our DigitalOcean review here. The error message described in this article applies to DigitalOcean’s VPS cloud servers. The same error can also be seen on Linux servers from other hosting providers.
The images below are the captured screens that display the fatal error message.
On CentOS 5.x, 6.x and 7.x (both 32-bit and 64-bit):
On Fedora 17.x, 18.x and 19.x (both 32-bit and 64-bit):
How to Deal with Grubby Fatal Error
Before running the very first update on your CentOS or Fedora systems, remove file “/boot/grub/grub.conf” with the following “rm” command.
sudo rm /boot/grub/grub.conf
Optionally, remove the symbolic link “/etc/grub.conf” with the following command line.
sudo rm /etc/grub.conf
And then update your systems.
sudo yum update
If you follow the steps above, you should be able to update the kernel without seeing the “Grubby Fatal Error” message.
Some VPS cloud hosting providers such as DigitalOcean are not using GRUB. However the CentOS and Fedora templates they provide to their users still include the GRUB menu interface configuration file. That is the cause of the grubby fatal error. After the removal of the configuration file grub.conf, the Linux kernel can be successfully updated without the error message “Grubby Fatal Error: Unable to Find a Suitable Template”.
I hope this article will help those who have run into the same issue when doing an update on CentOS or Fedora servers. On the other hand, hosting providers should look into this issue and probably update their Linux images if GRUB is not in use. When a user spins up a fresh VPS server and runs an update on it right away, the Linux kernel should be updated without any grubby fatal error messages.
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