My friend uses a typical dual-boot setup (Windows XP and Centos 5.3). The machine is online 24/7 and he often uses it from a remote location (Linux via ssh -X, Windows via rdesktop). The problem is that he wants to be able to remotely configure which of these two OSes is to be the default on next reboot, so he can switch from one OS to the other and back remotely. If Linux is up, he just needs to reconfigure grub.conf, but if Windows is up (and default) he has no way of accessing grub.conf. Now, he has several partitions on the drive, some ntfs, some vfat and some ext3. Is there a clean way of putting grub.conf on a vfat partition? Is there a way for Windows to have rw access to ext3 filesystem (namely, /)? Is there some other way of handling this without physical access to the machine while it boots? I have suggested virtualization of Windows, so he could run them both concurrently without pain, but for certain (computational performance) reasons that is not a good option for him --- he wants hard reboots between OSes. Any suggestions? Thanks! :-) Marko
Marko Vojinovic wrote:> My friend uses a typical dual-boot setup (Windows XP and Centos 5.3). > The machine is online 24/7 and he often uses it from a remote location > (Linux via ssh -X, Windows via rdesktop). > > The problem is that he wants to be able to remotely configure which of > these two OSes is to be the default on next reboot, so he can switch > from one OS to the other and back remotely. If Linux is up, he just > needs to reconfigure grub.conf, but if Windows is up (and default) he > has no way of accessing grub.conf. > > Now, he has several partitions on the drive, some ntfs, some vfat and > some ext3. Is there a clean way of putting grub.conf on a vfat > partition? Is there a way for Windows to have rw access to ext3 > filesystem (namely, /)? Is there some other way of handling this > without physical access to the machine while it boots? > > I have suggested virtualization of Windows, so he could run them both > concurrently without pain, but for certain (computational performance) > reasons that is not a good option for him --- he wants hard reboots > between OSes.You don't really have to choose VMs or dual-boot - you can run a bootable partition under VMware, and perhaps virtualbox and others. It is somewhat more convenient to make the windows install the host, though, because otherwise it wants to be re-licensed every time you switch and it sees different hardware. I suppose you could fire up the centos VM under windows to edit the grub.conf file, then shut it down and reboot the physical machine. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko at gmail.com> wrote:> My friend uses a typical dual-boot setup (Windows XP and Centos 5.3). > The machine is online 24/7 and he often uses it from a remote location > (Linux via ssh -X, Windows via rdesktop). > > The problem is that he wants to be able to remotely configure which of > these two OSes is to be the default on next reboot, so he can switch > from one OS to the other and back remotely. If Linux is up, he just > needs to reconfigure grub.conf, but if Windows is up (and default) he > has no way of accessing grub.conf. > > Now, he has several partitions on the drive, some ntfs, some vfat and > some ext3. Is there a clean way of putting grub.conf on a vfat > partition? Is there a way for Windows to have rw access to ext3 > filesystem (namely, /)? Is there some other way of handling this > without physical access to the machine while it boots? > > I have suggested virtualization of Windows, so he could run them both > concurrently without pain, but for certain (computational performance) > reasons that is not a good option for him --- he wants hard reboots > between OSes. > > Any suggestions? > > Thanks! :-) > Marko >I have not done this, but maybe a small vfat partition with syslinux instead of grub as the boot loader. Then you could edit the configuration from both Windows and Linux. It might also be a good idea for him to look into one of these single-port IP/KVMs in case he needs to get to the console: http://www.lantronix.com/it-management/kvm-over-ip/securelinx-spider.html
Hi Marko, On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:58 PM, Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko at gmail.com> wrote:> My friend uses a typical dual-boot setup (Windows XP and Centos 5.3). > The machine is online 24/7 and he often uses it from a remote location > (Linux via ssh -X, Windows via rdesktop). > > The problem is that he wants to be able to remotely configure which of > these two OSes is to be the default on next reboot, so he can switch > from one OS to the other and back remotely. If Linux is up, he just > needs to reconfigure grub.conf, but if Windows is up (and default) he > has no way of accessing grub.conf.Along with other options provided in the list, you can also use this to mount that partition as ext2 within Windows. http://www.fs-driver.org/ See the section about mounting ext3 partitions: http://www.fs-driver.org/faq.html#acc_ext3 -- Hakan (m1fcj) - http://www.hititgunesi.org
On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 23:58 +0200, Marko Vojinovic wrote:> My friend uses a typical dual-boot setup (Windows XP and Centos 5.3). > The machine is online 24/7 and he often uses it from a remote location > (Linux via ssh -X, Windows via rdesktop). > > The problem is that he wants to be able to remotely configure which of > these two OSes is to be the default on next reboot, so he can switch > from one OS to the other and back remotely. If Linux is up, he just > needs to reconfigure grub.conf, but if Windows is up (and default) he > has no way of accessing grub.conf. > > Now, he has several partitions on the drive, some ntfs, some vfat and > some ext3. Is there a clean way of putting grub.conf on a vfat > partition? Is there a way for Windows to have rw access to ext3 > filesystem (namely, /)? Is there some other way of handling this > without physical access to the machine while it boots?http://www.fs-driver.org/ I've used this in the past with great success. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 197 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20090423/d22f1f2e/attachment-0002.sig>
Ok, to summarize, using a small CentOS system in a virtual machine is one option (the "safe" one, I would say), while mounting / from Windows using that driver is another one (the "easy" one, because It doesn't feel so safe). Thanks to all who have replied, I'll look into these ideas over the weekend, and then I'll decide. Best, :-) Marko