[LUG] lilo.conf problems

["justin.powell1" <justin.powell1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jonathan,

This is slightly academic now that you have things working but your last email
started me thinking which is always a dangerous thing.

Looking at your lilo.conf:

_________________________________________
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=:-)Linux!!
keytable=/boot/fr-latin1.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=160
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
        label=:-)Linux!!
        root=/dev/hda6
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi"
        read-only
______________________________________

And the following symptoms from your email:


     For some reason, even though we changed lilo.conf and fstab to reflect
     the
     changes, swapping the IDE channels completely loused the system - it
     would
     get as far as looking for the root partition which, for some unknown
     reason
     it still thought was hdc6, and then kernel panic.

and


     I don't know if this is necessary but the CD burner isn't showing up in
     a SCSI
     bus scan, even though we added the correct append line in lilo.conf, so
     I
     thought it was worth a try.

Your problem could have been with the image label ':-)Linux!!' in the image
section of the lilo.conf file. If the lilo command parser tripped over this for
any reason ( :-) or !! are possible candidates) your lilo.conf could have been
effectively truncated to:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=:-)Linux!!
keytable=/boot/fr-latin1.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=160
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz

Without an explicit root device I presume the kernel would fall back on the one
encoded into the image at compile or install, which from your email sounds like
it was hdc6. It would also explain the loss of the "hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi"
setting, and the resulting failure of the SCSI bus scan.

If it wasn't the :-) or !!, then a rogue control or unprintable character in the
lilo.conf could also have had the same effect. I have suffered these sorts of
problems in the past. Checking and fixing the file with a hex editor usually does
the trick.

Anyway its was just a thought.

Regards,

Justin.


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