December 2005
Beginner
480 pages
13h 27m
English
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Hack #91. Bypass the Standard Init Sequence for Quick Repairs
Get as close to the metal as you can when resolving startup problems.
If you're having problems booting a system to single-user mode, both the LILO and GRUB Linux bootloaders provide a great shortcut to help you get a shell prompt on an ailing system. This hack is especially useful if your password or shadow file has been damaged, a critical system binary is damaged or missing, or—heaven forbid—you've actually forgotten the root password on one of your systems.
By default, Linux systems use the /sbin/init process to start all other processes, including the root shell that you get when you boot a system in single-user mode. Both LILO and GRUB enable you to specify an alternate binary to run instead of the init process, though, using the init=
command boot option. By specifying /bin/bash as the command to start, you can get a quick prompt on your machine without exec'ing init or going through any of the other steps in your system's normal startup process.
Warning
The shell that is started when you exec /bin/bash directly does not have job control (Ctrl-Z) and does not respond to interrupts (Ctrl-C), so be very careful what commands you run from this shell. Don't run any commands that do not automatically terminate or prompt for subcommands that enable you to exit and return to the shell.
If you're using the GRUB bootloader, press any key to interrupt the standard GRUB boot process, use the arrow keys to select the kernel you ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.