Bug 531566 - Need a way of setting totaltimeout for syslinux.conf file
Summary: Need a way of setting totaltimeout for syslinux.conf file
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: livecd-tools
Version: rawhide
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Brian Lane
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2009-10-28 19:02 UTC by Daniel Walsh
Modified: 2010-12-02 19:13 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

Fixed In Version: livecd-tools-14.0-1.fc14
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-11-11 17:41:52 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Here is the patch to support totaltimeout (2.22 KB, patch)
2009-10-28 19:04 UTC, Daniel Walsh
no flags Details | Diff

Description Daniel Walsh 2009-10-28 19:02:59 UTC
Description of problem:

I want to create an uninteruptable livecd.  The idea is to have a boot cd that you can not break into and change the boot params.

In syslinux.conf, there is a totaltimeout flag that is non interuptable by the user.  If I set this to 1, the system will wait 1/10s before booting up.  

I want to be able add  the line

bootloader --timeout=1 --totaltimeout=1

to my kickstart command and create such a livecd.

If totattimeout=0 then it will do nothing, which should be the default.

Comment 1 Daniel Walsh 2009-10-28 19:04:46 UTC
Created attachment 366484 [details]
Here is the patch to support totaltimeout

Comment 2 Jeremy Katz 2009-10-28 19:17:34 UTC
This would require pykickstart to support totaltimeout and that's then super bootloader-specific implementation details creeping into kickstart.

Which is wrong.

We should just do the right thing and not push lame interfaces to our users.  If the right thing is that a timeout of zero implies "non-interruptible", then we should just set that if that's the given timeout.  

And also, that then needs verification that the behavior is the same when being used on an EFI system booting via GRUB as we support that and otherwise, your "secure" boot isn't so secure.

Comment 3 Daniel Walsh 2009-10-28 19:24:26 UTC
That is fine. I just want un-interuptable boots so users can not tell a livecd to come up in single user mode.  The best you can do with syslinux.conf is .1 seconds.  0 Seconds indicates disabled.

I can investigate how to do this with the other types of boots.

Comment 4 Bug Zapper 2009-11-16 14:31:05 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 12 development cycle.
Changing version to '12'.

More information and reason for this action is here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

Comment 5 Daniel Walsh 2010-02-03 16:30:01 UTC
Revisiting this bug,  Is there any way for my kick start script to muck around with the syslinux.sys file?  

I looked at EFI and could not see a way to build a non blockable boot.

Comment 6 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2010-05-07 15:41:11 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 7 Jasper O'neal Hartline 2010-08-05 15:51:22 UTC
The way to do this would be through the livecd-iso-to-disk script or if you look in python-imgcreate in live.py around lines 424 you could set your timeout.

I am sure we wouldn't want to introduce something like this into livecd-creator.


Here is the code block if you're interested in doing customizations however:
    def __get_basic_syslinux_config(self, **args):
        return """
default %(menu)s
timeout %(timeout)d

%(background)s
menu title Welcome to %(name)s!
menu color border 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color sel 7 #ffffffff #ff000000
menu color title 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color tabmsg 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color unsel 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color hotsel 0 #ff000000 #ffffffff
menu color hotkey 7 #ffffffff #ff000000
menu color timeout_msg 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color timeout 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color cmdline 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu hidden
menu hiddenrow 5
""" % args

Comment 8 Brian Lane 2010-10-22 22:12:37 UTC
syslinux doesn't support this, so I don't see any solution.

Comment 9 Daniel Walsh 2010-10-25 16:02:34 UTC
I agree the code should be put into livecd-iso-to-disk script

Brian syslinux supports totaltimeout=1  Which gives me what I want.

Comment 10 Brian Lane 2010-10-25 16:26:22 UTC
If I'm understanding correctly 1 will give you .1 and also allow users to hit a key to get the menu. It may narrow down the window of time where the key is recognized (I'm guessing) but won't lock things down for you.

Comment 11 Daniel Walsh 2010-10-25 16:40:02 UTC
no that is not the way it works. totaltimeout is not interuptable.  After .1 seconds the boot will start whether or not a user types anything.

Comment 12 Brian Lane 2010-10-25 21:08:26 UTC
Ok, totaltimeout really seem to work. Sorry I didn't notice there were 2 different ones earlier.

Comment 13 Fedora Update System 2010-11-16 01:01:01 UTC
livecd-tools-14.0-1.fc14 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 14.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/livecd-tools-14.0-1.fc14

Comment 14 Daniel Walsh 2010-11-16 16:49:42 UTC
Awesome, thanks.

Comment 15 Fedora Update System 2010-12-02 19:13:19 UTC
livecd-tools-14.0-1.fc14 has been pushed to the Fedora 14 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.


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