Interesting RH 7.3 GRUB boot issue with no Video card present
 

Hardware: Advantech SBC (Firewall/Gateway appliance)
PIII-850, 256MB, 20GB disk in a 1U enclosure. Loaded custom software based on RH 7.3 and GRUB. S3 Trident PCI card used to load and configure network IP parms. Boots fine with video card still in, but when video card is removed - GRUB gets stuck in a loop waiting for a console response.

Video card must be removed to put cover on enclosure.

I edited grub.conf to enable a serial console to see what was going on, that is how I discovered the GRUB waiting for a console input. I disabled the splashimage line and I can manually type in my grub.conf command into the serial terminal and boot the system without the video card.

How do I automate the GNU GRUB loader to ignore the missing video card/console and just process the kernel and initrd commands to boot?

Here is my current grub.conf

root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-18.7x. ro root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-18.7.x.img
boot /dev/hda1

Thanks in Advance.

Re: Interesting RH 7.3 GRUB boot issue with no Video card present
 

Meaning that you don't have to hit any keys?

Mmmmm, what does /boot/grub/menu.lst look like?


I'm guessing that it has something to do with the "menu.lst" file. Let's have a look at that :)


John

More info and further results
 

John, thanks for your input. Here is further info.

The appliance is supposed to be a headless unit with only ethernet cables attached and power of course.
Link to see the unit. http://www.advantech.com/products/Mo...id=1-8080D&bu=

To load the CD and application I have a keyboard kit, CD rom drive and a video card attached.

The /boot/grub/menu.lst file is really a pointer to the /boot/grub/grub.conf file. They are identical. Here is my current file.
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda1
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
# default=0
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal serial console
# splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Enable-IT Gateway (4.0)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-18.7.x ro root=/dev/hda1 console=ttys0
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-18.7.x.img
boot=dev/hda1

This unfortunately still requires me to attach a serial console and respond to the boot process. Here is the serial console output.

Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.

GRUB version 0.91 (639K lower / 261120K upper memory)

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Enable-IT Gateway (4.0) |
|
[H Booting 'Enable-IT Gateway (4.0)'

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-18.7.x ro root=/dev/hda1 console=ttys0
[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1400, size=0x108fde]
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-18.7.x.img
[Linux-initrd @ 0xffd1000, 0x1ea7f bytes]
boot=dev/hda1

My goal in this is to have a self booting loader with nothing attached except power and the 3 ehternet cables. It can be done, it is just a matter of fixing GRUB I believe.

GRUB Problem Solved !
 

Ok here it is:
This is the grub.conf file located at /boot/grub

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this
file # NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that #
all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg. # root (hd0,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda1
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
# default=0
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=2 serial
timeout=2
# splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Enable-IT Gateway 4.0
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-18.7.x ro root=/dev/hda1 console=ttyS0
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-18.7.x.img
boot=dev/hda1