Re: How to avoid meltdowns in the future
This seems silly. Is there an easy/accessible way, preferably through
LILO, to boot into single-user mode with few, if any, daemons running?
I don't think you can without some advance planning, but if you do
arrange ahead of time, you can do it.
One option is to put an entry in your /etc/lilo.conf file, that is not
the one you use by default, that boots your system into single user
mode. I think what you do is give the "1" option to the kernel. "1" is
not a kernel option, but any remaining kernel options are passed to
init, and "init 1" gets you into single user mode.
Then press the left-shift key to get LILO's menu when you boot.
That's what I used to do back when I ran LILO.
However, a preferable option is to use GNU Grub, or one of the other
more featureful boot loaders. Again with GNU Grub you can have a preset
menu option to boot single user, but if you forget or you want to boot
single-user off some other kernel, you can escape into Grub's command
line and manually boot with any kernel or options you want.
Grub is available with apt-get or dselect. Also see:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
Another alternative, if you didn't plan ahead, is to go to somebody
else's Linux installation and install Grub on a floppy. Then you can
boot your PC off that floppy and use Grub's command line to select your
boot options.
Another advantage of Grub is that you don't have to configure anything
when you replace a kernel - no worry about forgetting to run lilo to
replace your block list. If you have a /boot/grub/menu.lst entry for it
already, you can just select it immediately when you boot. If you have
no menu entry, you can use the Grub command line.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc. - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com/
crawford@goingware.com
Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow.
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