Bug 24286 - The RH 7.0 version of LILO is broken for serial consoles
Summary: The RH 7.0 version of LILO is broken for serial consoles
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: lilo (Show other bugs)
(Show other bugs)
Version: 7.0
Hardware: i386 Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jeremy Katz
QA Contact: Brock Organ
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 16749 50781 (view as bug list)
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2001-01-18 13:50 UTC by Need Real Name
Modified: 2007-04-18 16:30 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2003-07-28 22:36:17 UTC
Type: ---
Regression: ---
Mount Type: ---
Documentation: ---
CRM:
Verified Versions:
Category: ---
oVirt Team: ---
RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: ---

Attachments (Terms of Use)
Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

Description Need Real Name 2001-01-18 13:50:47 UTC 
The LILO that ships with RedHat 7.0 does not work correctly on a serial 
console.  LILO prints:

LILO\n

but does not permit you to select a kernel image.  Upgrading to a recent 
version of lilo (lilo-21.6 seems to work fine) solves the problem.

John Coffman, the current maintainer of LILO, had the following to say 
about the problem:

> RedHat has taken a divergent approach to LILO, starting with the 21.4.4
> code and adding the PCX (VGA only) interface.
Comment 1 Pekka Savola 2001-01-20 13:40:28 UTC 
This is a known bug.  If you comment out message= (the graphical menu), the selection should
work again.
Comment 2 Doug Ledford 2001-01-22 23:11:30 UTC 
I'm going to re-assign this to msw.  It seems to me that since the answer is not
to use the VGA message screen on a serial console machine, then there should
possibly be an option in the installer that allows us to disable the generation
of the VGA message in the lilo.conf file during install.  Matt?
Comment 3 Pekka Savola 2001-01-22 23:14:54 UTC 
An another solution might be to hack lilo so that if you append parameters such that
serial console would be enabled, or give serial= setting, message= would automatically
be disabled.
Comment 4 Matt Wilson 2001-01-22 23:38:55 UTC 
We can have the installer not put message= when it knows that you're on serial
install.  I think I'd like to get on mainline LILO, though.
Comment 5 Pekka Savola 2001-01-22 23:46:44 UTC 
Many people (including us, for example) install from standard console but put 
secondary/primary console settings in afterwards.

I agree diverging will not be pretty in the long run.  Lilo requires great deal of attention.
Comment 6 Need Real Name 2001-01-22 23:52:02 UTC 
Getting rid of message= when the install is on a serial console is a quick, 
easy hack to solve this problem for hard core serial console users, where 
serial console may be the only method of access after a remote install (we 
frequently install RedHat via two-kernel monte on remote systems, doing a full 
install without even a redhat CD or a floppy).

The real solution, as others have noted, is merging back to the mainline LILO 
and getting all of the other benefits that that provides (LBA support etc).
Comment 7 Matt Wilson 2001-01-22 23:54:24 UTC 
lba support is in the lilo we have already, and the menuing code is much much
different in mainline.
Comment 8 Jeremy Katz 2002-06-04 06:35:32 UTC 
*** Bug 50781 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Jeremy Katz 2002-06-04 19:23:24 UTC 
Reassigning
Comment 10 Pekka Savola 2002-06-05 11:48:46 UTC 
*** Bug 16749 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Jeremy Katz 2003-07-28 22:36:17 UTC 
anaconda does the right thing for this case now
Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.