Hello. I need some help. I need to know how to go about changing
lilo.conf & applying the new settings while booted from a rescue cd.

I have a RedHat 7.2 box which I decided to turn in to a VMware
appliance. I used netcat & dd to image the hard drive on the physical
box to a VMware disk I had created. All that went well. I knew I
would need to change fstab, etc as the boot & root partitions on the
physical box were on /dev/hda, whereas on VMWare it's /dev/sda. I've
done that from a rescue CD. I get a kernel panic when booting as lilo
still references /dev/hda.

How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
that with this version of LILO.

Thank you!

Mike Poe wrote:

> Hello. I need some help. I need to know how to go about changing
> lilo.conf & applying the new settings while booted from a rescue cd.
>
> I have a RedHat 7.2 box which I decided to turn in to a VMware
> appliance. I used netcat & dd to image the hard drive on the physical
> box to a VMware disk I had created. All that went well. I knew I
> would need to change fstab, etc as the boot & root partitions on the
> physical box were on /dev/hda, whereas on VMWare it's /dev/sda. I've
> done that from a rescue CD. I get a kernel panic when booting as lilo
> still references /dev/hda.
>
> How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
> simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
> that with this version of LILO.

Boot with the rescue CD, use chroot as directed by the on-screen message,
edit the /etc/lilo.conf and save your changes then do; /sbin/lilo -v

When you done reboot the system and load the installation CD as root do;

rpm -Uvh /path/to/the/mounted/CD/grub*.rpm
/sbin/grub-install --recheck /dev/sda

Now you have grub instead of lilo, it would be a good idea to check
the /boot/grub/grub.conf looks correct

FYI: RHL7.2 is really really old and not supported by anyone without cost,
please consider upgrading maybe to FC5 or CentOS 3/4 if staying with the
Red Hat family.


--
"A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours,
Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy, 2005

In comp.os.linux.setup Mike Poe <trolling4dollars@gmail.com>:
> Hello. I need some help. I need to know how to go about changing
> lilo.conf & applying the new settings while booted from a rescue cd.

> I have a RedHat 7.2 box which I decided to turn in to a VMware
> appliance. I used netcat & dd to image the hard drive on the physical
> box to a VMware disk I had created. All that went well. I knew I
> would need to change fstab, etc as the boot & root partitions on the
> physical box were on /dev/hda, whereas on VMWare it's /dev/sda. I've
> done that from a rescue CD. I get a kernel panic when booting as lilo
> still references /dev/hda.

You just follow the instructions if you boot from some RH install
medium, 'chroot' to your already mounted system, edit lilo.conf
and rerun lilo. No rocket science involved.

> How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
> simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
> that with this version of LILO.

Wrong! Why can't you do this using lilo? Works for me just fine.

BTW
RH 7.2 is EOL since some time you might want to look into
upgrading to something recent.


--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 84: Someone is standing on the ethernet cable,
causing a kink in the cable

Michael Heiming wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.setup Mike Poe <trolling4dollars@gmail.com>:
> > Hello. I need some help. I need to know how to go about changing
> > lilo.conf & applying the new settings while booted from a rescue cd.
>
> > I have a RedHat 7.2 box which I decided to turn in to a VMware
> > appliance. I used netcat & dd to image the hard drive on the physical
> > box to a VMware disk I had created. All that went well. I knew I
> > would need to change fstab, etc as the boot & root partitions on the
> > physical box were on /dev/hda, whereas on VMWare it's /dev/sda. I've
> > done that from a rescue CD. I get a kernel panic when booting as lilo
> > still references /dev/hda.
>
> You just follow the instructions if you boot from some RH install
> medium, 'chroot' to your already mounted system, edit lilo.conf
> and rerun lilo. No rocket science involved.
>

Well, obviously it isn't rocket science. However, with the version of
the RedHat Sys Admin CD (the business card CD) that came with 7.2 there
is no chroot option. You have the option of mounting the file systems
RO or RW, which I've done. Even after mounting them RW & editing
lilo.conf & running lilo, I still get a kernel panic. I assume for
some reason LILO isn't really activating the changes I made.

> > How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
> > simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
> > that with this version of LILO.
>
> Wrong! Why can't you do this using lilo? Works for me just fine.
>

Again, you apparently haven't used the version of LILO that ships with
7.2 in a while. I'm aware that with newer version you can press 'e' to
edit the config at boot time, as with Grub. However, with the version
installed on that system, there is no way to edit the config that I've
found. If you know of a way I'd be interested in hearing it.

> BTW
> RH 7.2 is EOL since some time you might want to look into
> upgrading to something recent.
>

7.2 is fine for what we're using it for... thanks to office politics.

Lenard wrote:
> Mike Poe wrote:
>
> > Hello. I need some help. I need to know how to go about changing
> > lilo.conf & applying the new settings while booted from a rescue cd.
> >
> > I have a RedHat 7.2 box which I decided to turn in to a VMware
> > appliance. I used netcat & dd to image the hard drive on the physical
> > box to a VMware disk I had created. All that went well. I knew I
> > would need to change fstab, etc as the boot & root partitions on the
> > physical box were on /dev/hda, whereas on VMWare it's /dev/sda. I've
> > done that from a rescue CD. I get a kernel panic when booting as lilo
> > still references /dev/hda.
> >
> > How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
> > simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
> > that with this version of LILO.
>
> Boot with the rescue CD, use chroot as directed by the on-screen message,
> edit the /etc/lilo.conf and save your changes then do; /sbin/lilo -v
>
> When you done reboot the system and load the installation CD as root do;
>
> rpm -Uvh /path/to/the/mounted/CD/grub*.rpm
> /sbin/grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
>
> Now you have grub instead of lilo, it would be a good idea to check
> the /boot/grub/grub.conf looks correct
>
> FYI: RHL7.2 is really really old and not supported by anyone without cost,
> please consider upgrading maybe to FC5 or CentOS 3/4 if staying with the
> Red Hat family.
>
>
> --
> "A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours,
> Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
> Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy, 2005

Thanks for the info. I don't have a chroot option on the boot CD I'm
using (the RH 7.2 sys admin boot CD), but I'll try chroot'ing manually
after booting & see if that works.

In comp.os.linux.setup Mike Poe <trolling4dollars@gmail.com>:

> Michael Heiming wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.setup Mike Poe <trolling4dollars@gmail.com>:
[ problems with lilo]

>> You just follow the instructions if you boot from some RH install
>> medium, 'chroot' to your already mounted system, edit lilo.conf
>> and rerun lilo. No rocket science involved.

> Well, obviously it isn't rocket science. However, with the version of
> the RedHat Sys Admin CD (the business card CD) that came with 7.2 there
> is no chroot option. You have the option of mounting the file systems
> RO or RW, which I've done. Even after mounting them RW & editing
> lilo.conf & running lilo, I still get a kernel panic. I assume for
> some reason LILO isn't really activating the changes I made.

There is no option for you to select, you check where the rescue
system has mounted your installation or mount it manually, then
'chroot /your_system_rootfs_mountpoint/' per default
"/mnt/sysimage" on RH, if you use the first installation disk an
enter 'linux rescue'.

The reason is pretty simple, you didn't chroot to your mounted
rootfs or at least gave lilo the option to install where you
need. This is covered in the fine manual of course. You might
like to give it a try:

$ man -k lilo
lilo (8) - install boot loader
lilo.conf [lilo] (5) - configuration file for lilo


>> > How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
>> > simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
>> > that with this version of LILO.

>> Wrong! Why can't you do this using lilo? Works for me just fine.

> Again, you apparently haven't used the version of LILO that ships with
> 7.2 in a while. I'm aware that with newer version you can press 'e' to
> edit the config at boot time, as with Grub. However, with the version
> installed on that system, there is no way to edit the config that I've
> found. If you know of a way I'd be interested in hearing it.

Apparently I have, probably on more systems then you might think
and of course you can edit the bootline. 'e' will not work on any
version of lilo, grub uses (iirc) this switch.

Simply press <TAB> once/twice type the image label you want and
a space then your options 'root=/dev/<whatever>'.

I am pretty glad you are interested in hearing how to solve YOUR
problem.. ;-) Perhaps you are not aware that this is USENET and
*not* some google forum with paid stuff to server you...

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 359: YOU HAVE AN I/O ERROR -> Incompetent Operator
error

On 2006-09-09, Mike Poe <trolling4dollars@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello. I need some help. I need to know how to go about changing
> lilo.conf & applying the new settings while booted from a rescue cd.
>
> I have a RedHat 7.2 box which I decided to turn in to a VMware
> appliance. I used netcat & dd to image the hard drive on the physical
> box to a VMware disk I had created. All that went well. I knew I
> would need to change fstab, etc as the boot & root partitions on the
> physical box were on /dev/hda, whereas on VMWare it's /dev/sda. I've
> done that from a rescue CD. I get a kernel panic when booting as lilo
> still references /dev/hda.
>
> How can I go about changing this? If it were using grub, it would be a
> simple matter of editing the parameters at boot time, but I can't do
> that with this version of LILO.

Can't you pass a root=/dev/sda1 option to the kernel at the lilo:
prompt? Once you've booted, use the "rdev" command to change the
hard-coded reference to the root device in the kernel. See "man rdev"
for details. Don't forget to edit /etc/lilo.conf and re-run lilo
again.


--

John (john@os2.dhs.org)