Topic: forcing a kernel choice at boot-up

[henry44]

The kernel I want to use isn't showing up on the boot list, but is installed.

How do I force the computer to use the desired kernel?

[pfloor]

Henry, please don't try to solve your bug via the forums.  Whatever you do here will get lost and if there is a bug with SME it may not get solved if you don't use the bug tracker.

[David Harper]

@pfloor - Henry has already reported the bug (#4781), and was referred to the forums for the answer to this question.

[henry44]

The kernel I want to use isn't showing up on the boot list, but is installed.

How do I force the computer to use the desired kernel?


I have a bug reported (#4802) but wanted to see if there was a problem particular to my application rather than a general problem (bug).

I think I can solve the problem by editing the grub file to include the desired kernel. How does this sound.

[David Harper]

From my test machine's /etc/grub.conf:

Code: [Select]

default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/smeserver.xpm.gz
foreground 000000
background 4E95D3
hiddenmenu
title SME Server (2.6.9-78.0.8.ELsmp)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-78.0.8.ELsmp ro root=/dev/main/root
        initrd /initrd-2.6.9-78.0.8.ELsmp.img
title SME Server (2.6.9-78.0.8.EL)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-78.0.8.EL ro root=/dev/main/root
        initrd /initrd-2.6.9-78.0.8.EL.img

The key lines for you are the smp kernel entries (which refer to files in /boot - make sure they are there) and the default=0 parameter.

After you fiddle with grub.conf, don't forget to re-run grub-install to install the changes.

[pfloor]

@pfloor - Henry has already reported the bug (#4781), and was referred to the forums for the answer to this question.

Henry was never told to come to the forums for this problem, he was asked to open a separate bug concerning the boot grub menu problem which he kindly did.

The kernel I want to use isn't showing up on the boot list, but is installed.

How do I force the computer to use the desired kernel?


I have a bug reported (#4802) but wanted to see if there was a problem particular to my application rather than a general problem (bug).

I think I can solve the problem by editing the grub file to include the desired kernel. How does this sound.

That is a possible solution but like I have asked, let's please solve this in the bug tracker.  The kernel got installed but grub.conf was not updated so if there is a bug we need to identify it and solve it so this doesn't happen to someone else.  Bugs are solved in the bug tracker and not here in the forums.

[henry44]

> Thanks for your help.
>
> How can I get the SMP version of the newer kernel to be available in the boot
> kernel list?

Please note that this is not a support resource. We use this facility just to
identify and track the fixing of bugs.

This bug report deals with VPN problems. We will need to have another bug
report (e.g. by cloning this one) which deals with the boot menu issue.




The above is a cut and paste from bug #4781. It seems to me that I was directed to open a bug report concerning the grub file not being upgraded (#4802) then come to the forum to get advice as to how I am to go about fixing the problem.

I don't want to cause trouble, I just want to get the problem fixed.

I figured out that the problem was that grub was not updated. I have now added the required lines to grub.conf and have confirmed that the required kernel files are present in /boot.

I now need to run grub-install, but have never used that command. I read the help file, but I would be happier of someone could give me the complete syntax of the command. I have a plain vanilla install of 7.4 on a dual processor box, so everything is in the default location. My guess is that I use "grub-install hd0" without the quotes, correct?

[robwellesley]

I don't want to cause trouble, I just want to get the problem fixed.

Your not causing trouble Henry.  You're helping every other SME user that has a Server in production - yes Bugs need to be fixed, but a production server is not a test Server.  Thanks for your post.

Rob

[David Harper]

The command is a little different depending on your hard drive setup.

The basic structure is:

grub-install /dev/hda (for IDE drive 0)
grub-install /dev/sda (for SCSI drive 0)

[henry44]

Editing the grub file didn't solve the problem as it seems that the required kernel was not installed, despite indications otherwise.

I ended up reinstalling and restoring from the nightly back-up (lost only 8 hours of e-mail). I don't know if this problem was the result of a bug in version 7.4 or the result of a borked update, but I ran out of time for further investigations.

Thanks for all the suggestion and help.

The bug associated with this issue is #4802