Bug 177550

Summary:	sys-boot/grub - add enable-preset-menu
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Christian Zuckschwerdt <zany>
Component:	New packages	Assignee:	Gentoo's Team for Core System packages <base-system>
Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	High
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---
Attachments:	grub-0.97-r3-presetmenu.patch

Description Christian Zuckschwerdt 2007-05-07 20:30:05 UTC

Add the enable-preset-menu configuration to the grub ebuild.
If /boot/grub/grub.conf.preset is present embed it as preset menu for fallback.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Kill boot partition, disk, or alike
2. Reboot machine remotely

Actual Results:  
No serial console access to grub / no fallback booting


I'd very much like to have a robust and accessible grub on my remote machines.
If there is something wrong with the disk, partitioning, etc. grub should start with custom defaults.
Possible options would include fallback to: netbooting, enabling serial, boot from 2nd disk in soft-raid, etc.

This is possible by embedding a preset menu as fallback, the attached patch adds /boot/grub/grub.conf.preset if present.

Comment 1 Christian Zuckschwerdt 2007-05-07 20:32:13 UTC

Created attachment 118492 [details, diff]
grub-0.97-r3-presetmenu.patch

proposed enhancement

Comment 2 SpanKY gentoo-dev

2007-05-07 21:52:45 UTC

that requires src_* functions accessing $ROOT which it shouldnt be doing (think building on one machine and deploying on another)

you can do this instead:
EXTRA_CONF="--enable-preset-menu=/boot/grub/grub.conf.preset" emerge grub

Comment 3 Christian Zuckschwerdt 2007-05-07 22:04:00 UTC

Ok, thanks. Maybe gentoo will integrate a nice distro preset via portage files someday?

Note: actually it's
EXTRA_ECONF="--enable-preset-menu=/boot/grub/grub.conf.preset" emerge grub

Comment 4 SpanKY gentoo-dev

2007-05-08 00:25:06 UTC

i dont quite follow ... what sort of presets would we put in there ?

Comment 5 Christian Zuckschwerdt 2007-05-08 11:26:30 UTC

E.g. with the 'serial' use flag (like memtest86) this preset would be nice:

serial --unit=0 --speed=9600
terminal --timeout=5 console serial

Of course this is just an example. As with boot splash there is no 'standard', it up to the distro to come up with something useful to the user base.