bugGNU GRUB - Bugs: bug #785, would like to change default for...

 
 

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bug #785: would like to change default for only next boot from running system

Submitter:  Jay Berkenbilt <jayberkenbilt>
Submitted:  Mon 01 Jul 2002 03:17:40 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  Configuration Severity:  Major
Priority:  5 - Normal Item Group:  Feature Request
Status:  Fixed Privacy:  Public
Assigned to:  None Originator Name: 
Open/Closed:  Closed Release:  None
Release:  0.91 Reproducibility:  None
Planned Release:  None

Jump to the original submission

Mon 21 Jun 2004 11:51:10 AM UTC, comment #11: 

This is done in the trunk of the CVS.

Yoshinori K. Okuji <okuji>
Group administrator
Mon 21 Jun 2004 11:51:02 AM UTC, comment #10: 

This is done in the trunk of the CVS.

Yoshinori K. Okuji <okuji>
Group administrator
Wed 11 Feb 2004 01:09:49 PM UTC, comment #9: 

I just wanted to show my support for this feature. I like GRUB far better than LILO, but at this point I cannot afford to use GRUB on my server (a headless Gentoo machine that lives roughly 100 miles from where I live) because there is no way to reboot into a known good kernel if a test kernel panics. With LILO, I just use lilo -R and reboot, passing panic=30 to the test kernel. If the kernel panics, it reboots after 30 seconds and LILO knows to boot up the default one next time.

Anonymous
Sun 08 Feb 2004 01:45:05 AM UTC, comment #8: 

Just a "me too".  I can hardly believe this feature isn't already implemented.

Anonymous
Mon 02 Feb 2004 08:28:01 PM UTC, comment #7: 

I have actually looking for this functionality in Grub lately.  I was kind of interested in setting up a file called nextboot that you could list the next default option to boot and pull it out of the file.  Then the next one would be queued up.  I pulled the source and was looking at it but I am just learning how Grub works.

Joe

Anonymous
Tue 28 Oct 2003 03:49:37 PM UTC, comment #6: 

Look at the patch in redhats grub srpm
It implements a patch to savedefault to
add te --once option

Pádraig Brady <pixelbeat>
Thu 23 Oct 2003 03:52:12 PM UTC, comment #5: 

I was looking for the same option... lilo -R is quite handy to  test a new kernel on a server without a display and keyboard.

Invalid User ID <#24565>
Tue 12 Aug 2003 10:25:28 PM UTC, comment #4: 

An external tool wont be able to reset the default entry number, if the kernel panics. For remote booting of new kernels, there needs to be a 'one-shot' option, or better yet it detects a boot-loop, say more than 3 in 5 minutes and boots a fail-back image.

Anonymous
Mon 16 Sep 2002 03:44:36 PM UTC, comment #3: 

oops -- I made the last comment without logging in.  Anyway, the last comment was made by the original poster....

Jay Berkenbilt <jayberkenbilt>
Mon 16 Sep 2002 03:42:58 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Changing the default entry would be one step, but in order for  my suggestion to work, it would have to be changed in such a way that the default would revert back for the next time, even if the system is booted into an operating system from which GRUB can't be configured.  It would be sufficient to, in addition to being able to override the next default, to be able to set the default for the next boot in the grub configuration file.  (Right now, the only thing you can do is "safedefault".)  If I could, for example, say that my next boot it is default to the third entry and to set in my grub configuration item for the third entry that it should restore the default to the first entry, that would do the trick.

Anonymous
Wed 11 Sep 2002 04:18:39 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Writing a tool that changes the default entry should not be too hard..

The location where the saved default entry number is located is documented in the "Internals" section in the GRUB manual.

Henrik Nordstrom <hno>
Mon 01 Jul 2002 03:17:40 PM UTC, original submission:  

I have a grub menu with several items on it.  I almost always choose the same one.  Occasionally, I want to boot from a different item on the next boot, but then want to return to by default for subsequent boots.  I would like to be able to override the menu item that will appear as the default on the next boot only and to be able to do this from my running system before rebooting.  This is different from using savedefault.

For example, once in a while, I boot into Windows instead of Linux.  I have a menu item called "dark" that does this.  I want to be able to run bootdark from Linux and have the system boot into windows the next time I boot.  Then, the time after that, I want it to go back to Linux again.

You could do this with lilo by using lilo -R.

Right now, I'm acheiving this goal by having a bunch of different grub configuration files that do various setups and installs, and I have a script that changes which grub configuration file is in use, but this is not clean.

It seems to me that savedefault must be writing something like this somewhere -- perhaps at the beginning of stage2 -- and that it wouldn't be a hard software change to support this request in a similar fashion.

The main reason for doing this is to be able to control booting remotely in a safe way.  I want to be able to control my next boot without having to be physically present at the machine.  For example, I can boot once into Windows, and then reboot from there using VNC.  I can't run grub from Linux, so the only way to get back once I've done that (short of messing with active partitions, etc.) is to have the default switch back upon the next boot.

Thanks for your consideration.

Jay Berkenbilt <jayberkenbilt>

 

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Follow 4 latest changes.

Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
2004-06-21 okuji Planned Release0. 0.96
2004-06-21 okuji StatusNone Fixed
    Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    Planned Release 0.

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