[syslinux] Domain-specific HLT when idle

[H. Peter Anvin]

Dag Wieers wrote:
> On Sat, 2 May 2009, Peter Iannucci wrote:
> 
>> In our case, the serial console is not an issue.  We would like to
>> submit a patch to isolinux which HLTs on getchar if isolinux is not
>> running with the serial console option.  Do you think this is the
>> right solution to this problem?  Can we work with you to resolve this?
> 
> I support you on this, I brought this on the table last year too. We are
> not using serial console and this is a big issue for us too.
> 
> In our case we do CD-based anaconda installations that (on success)
> automatically reboot. Since we cannot eject these virtual ISO images
> they wait on the isolinux bootprompt after this reboot.
> 
> It may take a few days (in some cases were we do test installations
> weeks) before the machines are booted (or re-installed) and it is
> wasting CPU power.
> 
> On a physical machine it's less disturbing since it is dedicated
> hardware (still not OK for green computing) but in virtualization this
> is a huge problem.
> 

Keep in mind that if you have control over the configuration it might be
preferrable to set a totaltimeout which shuts down the domain...

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.