Re: question(feature request..?)

[Uwe Dippel]

address@hidden wrote:

> hello. i have come to play with grub a bit and i am really excited about
> it. however, i wonder if there is any function for rebooting in case of
> kernel panic and booting a different entry in the menu (something
> similar to what lilo can do: boot once + reboot on panic..)
>
>
>  
Sorin,

not being so familiar with lilo, this sounds phantastic (in all meanings 
of the word). It implies that the boot-loader doesn't cede control to 
the kernel; rather works like a shell around it; controlling its ups and 
downs.
Earlier I was working on a concept of a 'standing-up' OS and so find 
this a welcome support: If a boot-loader, as a very small, simple and 
reliable program, keeps in overall control during kernel load; that is 
through an initrd, mount, etc. and could intervene at any moment of 
failure, we might want to keep it as an outer shell around that kernel 
forever.
If that boot-loader can throw out the kernel during boot, why should it 
not be able to throw out the kernel after boot, whenever the system 
comes to a grinding halt; be it after two weeks of uptime ?
You might argue that the admin can restart the system; or the system 
reboot automatically. Right, but at times this won't work; the admin be 
unavailable or the system got corrupted and reboots over and over. One 
could even envisage a rudimentary message passing from the dying kernel 
to the boot-loader to inform it that reboot won't work; another 
partition ought to be started or even that a re-install respectively 
replacing the current install with the latest good image is the thing to 
do. Then the boot-loader could automatically boot to another partition 
with another install (back-up install) or quite another partition that 
simply regenerates the main install / partitions from a good image. With 
this boot in turn passing a message to that boot-loader in case of 
successfully writing back the image and auto-finishes with /sbin/reboot 
or similar; getting the boot-loader to go back to running the by now 
repaired / reinstalled system.
Or just boot to a live-CD set up to return basic functionality to a 
system while waiting for the repair. Think of a compromised webserver 
that comes back automatically from live-CD.

The point should be clear by now. Can the experts in here say something 
about the feasability of this; and if lilo is really so close to being a 
URM (Uptime Reference Monitor) ?

Then I could only hope for grub to catch up ... !