On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 13:39:44 +0100 (BST) (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Hi Folks,
Suppose we have two machines, A and B, each dual-boot Linux/Windows. Suppose that Linux is the "default" OS on reboot -- i.e. if you switch the machine on and do nothing, Linux is what you get.
Let's start with both in Linux. Now, sitting at A, I want B to reboot into Windows, but without going to B.
One solution which has occurred to me is that, while at A, I can log in to B, su root, edit the LILO or GRUB config so that the boot order is reversed, and then tell B to reboot.
So far so good. I can even make this into a script, so that when logged into B I can issue something like "boot Windows".
But then, how to restore the original boot order without having to go to B, choose Linux from the boot menu, boot Linux, and re-edit the config file? I somehow doubt that you can do this while B is in Windows ... and I basically want the whole thing to be remote, from A.
If there were some capability in the boot loader itself that could restore a default boot configuration prior to actually booting the OS which is currently "on top", this would make the whole thing scriptable.
To be precise about this:
- A & B running Linux.
- At A, tell B to "boot Windows".
- B reboots.
- LILO/GRUB sees that Windows is "on top" and selects this as the OS to boot into.
- LILO/GRUB *also* restores the original config file with Linux "on top".
- LILO/GRUB then boots into Windows.
The effect would be that the next re-boot would be into Linux.
Any ideas or comments?
1 Dont use lilo as repeated writing to the boot sector may leave you unbootable 2 Grub maybe fine but I would, use network booting.
I have been playing with this for auto instalation, but all you need is either
a> a pxe and the first google result is http://www.kegel.com/linux/pxe.html b> etherboot http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/
I have 3com cards so use etherboot, this allows me to deside what to boot from either the files in a tftp directory or from the DNS server.
Regards
Owen S