Prev: Deleting custom file processing from Nautilus
Next: Maximum filesystsem / filesystem tool sizes?
From: Tony Mountifield on 1 Mar 2010 17:34
Hi, I'm not sure whether this is a silly question or not :-)

Does anyone here know if it is possible to boot a new kernel and initrd
from a running Linux system, rather than from a system's boot rom?

Or perhaps to invoke Grub from the running system, giving it a boot
command line, and having it completely take over from the running system.

The reason I ask is because I want to do a complete reinstall of a system
using a remote install tree and kickstart file, without having to do a
hardware reboot or use PXE.

Any hints would be appreciated!

Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony(a)softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony(a)mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org
From: Graham Murray on 2 Mar 2010 01:48
tony(a)softins.clara.co.uk (Tony Mountifield) writes:

> Hi, I'm not sure whether this is a silly question or not :-)
>
> Does anyone here know if it is possible to boot a new kernel and initrd
> from a running Linux system, rather than from a system's boot rom?
>
> Or perhaps to invoke Grub from the running system, giving it a boot
> command line, and having it completely take over from the running system.
>
> The reason I ask is because I want to do a complete reinstall of a system
> using a remote install tree and kickstart file, without having to do a
> hardware reboot or use PXE.
>
> Any hints would be appreciated!

A hint is to look at kexec(8). I have never tried it personally, but the
description matches your requirements.
From: Tony Mountifield on 2 Mar 2010 04:50
In article <87iq9fp6bw.fsf(a)newton.gmurray.org.uk>,
Graham Murray <newspost(a)gmurray.org.uk> wrote:
> tony(a)softins.clara.co.uk (Tony Mountifield) writes:
>
> > Hi, I'm not sure whether this is a silly question or not :-)
> >
> > Does anyone here know if it is possible to boot a new kernel and initrd
> > from a running Linux system, rather than from a system's boot rom?
> >
> > Or perhaps to invoke Grub from the running system, giving it a boot
> > command line, and having it completely take over from the running system.
> >
> > The reason I ask is because I want to do a complete reinstall of a system
> > using a remote install tree and kickstart file, without having to do a
> > hardware reboot or use PXE.
> >
> > Any hints would be appreciated!
>
> A hint is to look at kexec(8). I have never tried it personally, but the
> description matches your requirements.

Thanks, I too found kexec a while after I had posted. Although for CentOS
systems I could only find it for CentOS 5, not CentOS 4. It's a CentOS 4
system that I want to do the reinstall on.

I'll investigate further.

Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony(a)softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony(a)mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org
 | 
Pages: 1
Prev: Deleting custom file processing from Nautilus
Next: Maximum filesystsem / filesystem tool sizes?