[syslinux] Reboot from /bin/bash

[Geert Stappers]

> Good day Chris,

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On 20090406 at 10:48 wrote Shao Miller:
> From: Chris Miller
> Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 10:25
> 
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > GRUB claims to provide a feature that I want, but that doesn't really
> > work.  With GRUB you can presumably run GRUB from the command line
> > of a shell and see the menu of boot options that would be presented
> > if you were actually booting.  You can select a stanza from the
> > configfile and invoke it right then and there causing the machine
> > to reboot as though you had selected this option from the GRUB menu
> > during a system boot.  The problem is that GRUB doesn't work --
> > at least I can't get it to work.  Seems simple enough -- you type,
> > "boot" at the command prompt.  Not much room for error there, but
> > I get nothing...
> >
> > I'd like to be able to do this for a headless machine, so I can,
> > for example specify an install.  Under the current discipline,
> > headless machines will always boot the default menu stanza, because
> > they don't have the options to make choices and that default will be
> > boot a running full distribution on the USB rescue kit -- presumably
> > for rescue purposes.
> >
> > Does EXTLinux have a feature enabling command line invocation from
> > the shell?  It turn out that this feature is important enough to my
> > strategy that if it is not available, I may have to work with you
> > guys to develop it...
> >
>
> I am not aware of the ability to reboot from the GRUB CLI initiated from
> your Linux BASH shell.  That's not to say it's not there, but perhaps
> you could point towards the resource you learned this from.
> 
> Some compilations of Linux _do_ provide support for 'kexec', which will
> "reboot" to another kernel and initrd from the running environment, thus
> destroying the running environment.  This might be something interesting
> to you.
> 
> I think what you're really after is modifying the default option in your
> extlinux.cfg file.  You can do this with any Linux editor, such as VI or
> NANO.
> 
> "Shell" might be too generic a term in your e-mail.  Do you mean that
> you wish to choose which LABEL option to boot from the boot-loader's
> command-line interface (CLI)?  Or do you mean that you are happy to
> always boot the default LABEL and then wish to reboot from your Linux
> shell (BASH)?  With the former, you want to modify your extlinux.cfg
> file.  With the latter, I'd say you need 'kexec'.
> 
> You might be interested in PXELINUX, if you wish to control a
> workstation's boot via the network.  What you do is set the workstation
> to PXE-boot in the BIOS boot order, then have your DHCP server hand out
> "pxelinux.0" as the boot file.  Then read up on
> Syslinux/doc/pxelinux.txt and enjoy!


Yes, it is hard to guess what the Original Poster was (is??) looking for.

My advice to the OP is to take some time
to invest how a plain Syslinux config works.
And some more time how a tweaked Syslinux configuration works.
Mostly you have then something that works for you also.

When still puzzled, prepare you self
with http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


Cheers
Geert Stappers

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