[CentOS] Re: Kernel 2.6.18-53.1.13.el5 fails on network.

[Steven Haigh]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On
> Behalf Of William L. Maltby
> Sent: Friday, 15 February 2008 4:19 AM
> To: CentOS General List
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] Re: Kernel 2.6.18-53.1.13.el5 fails on network.
> 
> On Thu, 2008-02-14 at 08:44 -0800, Scott Silva wrote:
> > on 2/14/2008 2:25 AM William L. Maltby spake the following:
> > > <snip>
> 
> > > If grub had a "one time" next boot like LILO, I'd have some more
> > > thoughts, but <*sigh*>
> > >
> > I have been hoping for that option for years. I have used other
> options like
> > using sed or cp, but they are still susceptible to failures.
> > All my new hardware has been HP's with the ILO feature, so I haven't
> had to
> > worry about it for a while.
> 
> <*chuckle*> So I'm not the only one that thinks their self-aggrandizing
> naming as Grand Unified Boot... is not entirely accurate yet? It
> certainly is not G or U IMO. I was *very* comfy w/LILO and I did some
> neat tricks with it.
> 
> Makes me want to go back and look at LILO some more and see what other
> new features are in it now. But time prohibits that. <*sigh*>

Yeah, having the ability to do this would rock. The box in question is on a
remote power switch, however I don't have an IP KVM there (but would love
one!). The box does hosting for a number of community wireless sites in
Australia - none of which make any money to put towards buying equipment! I
looked at a single port IP KVM, but this was around $480AUD :(

As the box goes to a command prompt - even after failures - I was thinking
of putting a simple script at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local which will
launch in the background (/root/bin/bootinfo &)
 
----------------------- Begin script ---------------------
#!/bin/bash
sleep 30

# Gather some system info:
echo "System booted at `date`." > /root/bootinfo
cat /proc/version >> /root/bootinfo
echo "------ Dmesg start ------" >> /root/bootinfo
dmesg >> /root/bootinfo
echo "------ lsmod start ------" >> /root/bootinfo
lsmod >> /root/bootinfo
echo "------ ifconfig start ------" >> /root/bootinfo
ifconfig >> /root/bootinfo
echo "------ route info ------" >> /root/bootinfo
route -n >> /root/bootinfo
echo "------ mii-tool start ------" >> /root/bootinfo
mii-tool -v -i eth0 >> /root/bootinfo
echo "------ End troubleshooting ------" >> /root/bootinfo

# Test if we have network connectivity.
ping -c 1 -n <gateway>
if [ $? -eq "0" ]; then
  # We can ping the gateway!
  exit 0
else
  # We have no network connectivity :(
  cp -f /etc/grub.conf-good /etc/grub.conf
  reboot
fi
----------------------- End script ---------------------  

Does anyone have any additions or insight into this? Maybe something I'm
forgetting?

Obviously I'd have to make sure /etc/grub.conf-good is a working copy of the
config for grub....

--
Steven Haigh

Email: netwiz at crc.id.au
Web: http://www.crc.id.au
Phone: (03) 9001 6090 - 0412 935 897