Re: Kernel Link Fails

Bela Lubkin wrote:
I object to people not doing the simplest investigation, instead falling
back on the MS standard of "reboot, then if that doesn't work,
reinstall". I always avoid "remove and reinstall" as far as possible
because it's always an open question whether these operations will be
safe in an already compromised system. If that is "awesome kung-fu"
then so be it.

I agree with you post, except here. A system administrator usually does not reboot a system when it errors, *except* when the errors are kernel related and the service being provided can handle the five minutes of unavailability. A kernel relink is obviously kernel related, so a reboot is in order. The other option, is to pray. Or to dig inside C files ten directories deep in the filesystem hierarchy and hope for a miracle with the assistance of Saint Google.

A current Linux system can be made unbootable by simply deleting or
corrupting /boot/grub/menu.list (or any of several GRUB binaries).
There are dozens if not hundreds of other single points of failure. No
system can be without these. You may wish to object that you could
simply boot any of dozens of "live" or "recovery" CDs to repair this.
Well yeah. And Robert could have taken any of a number of simple steps
to fix his problem. Reinstalling your Linux system to fix the missing
GRUB config would be overkill, don't you think?

Sorry, but GRUB is a well understood and documented piece of software. In the oder hand, UNIX(tm) kernel relinking is a black art in the proper sense of the word, and only needed because SysVR3.2 does not have support for dynamically loadable drivers. So, OpenServer is outsourcing the pain to the users and forcing them to relink the kernel, to change an IP address. I don't know about you, but this is my definition of pain, specially when you are on the field in a client who is in production.

When unixfox talked about MISERY, I think he just summarized it.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Kernel Link Fails
    ... I always avoid "remove and reinstall" as far as possible ... not reboot a system when it errors, *except* when the errors are kernel ... A kernel relink is obviously kernel related, ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: 2.6.16-mm1 grub oddness
    ... I'm seeing strange things with grub with this kernel. ... been up for a while, and I reboot, selecting a kernel to restart, upon ... is now poking the display hardware in a manner which shuts it off? ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: Kernel update broke my system.
    ... unclear that there is an underlying kernel issue or not. ... that the kernel might be ok, but just that GRUB got hosed in the update ... Yes there may be/probably is a problem with grub or the grub reinstall process, but to what purpose is grub being reinstalled for a kernel update. ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Why Grub? Must I Switch?
    ... down), the next time it uses the previous config, but the grub ... > problems say if you have a kernel panic or the sshd won't start. ... > you use the -R in lilo then how can you reboot the machine if you have ... >> cant make a selection if you made the entry in the grub config, ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: F10 post installation kernel issue?
    ... the initial kernel I started with is: ... I was able to reboot, ... but could having the filesystem encrypted be a problem? ... I was looking over the grub stuff, ...
    (Fedora)