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Configuring LILO
Under Linux, your hard drives are abstracted to device files under the /dev directory. If you have one or more IDE drives, your first hard drive is referred to as /dev/hda, and your second hard drive is /dev/hdb. SCSI drives are referred to as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. When you installed Linux, you most likely partitioned your hard drive. The first partition on your first drive would be /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1. Consequently, your second partition would be /dev/hda2
or /dev/sda2, and so on.
Before configuring LILO, you should know which partitions have what operating system on them. You should also know where you want to install LILO. In almost all cases, you will want to put LILO on the MBR. You shouldn’t do this, however, if you run OS/2. OS/2’s boot loader should go on the MBR, and LILO should then be installed on the superblock of the root partition.
Before installing LILO, you should know where your Linux partition is, and if you have other operating systems, you must know where they are located. For example, your Linux partition might be at /dev/hda1, and your Windows 95 partition might be at /dev/hda2. If Linux is the only operating system on your computer or if you have Windows 95 or Windows NT, you will want to install LILO as the MBR of the drive. If you have OS/2 also, you will want to install LILO on the root partition of your hard drive and use OS/2’s boot loader on the MBR.
LILO is normally installed after you have
partitioned your hard drives and after you have installed either
Linux or other operating systems. Armed with your information, you
are now ready to edit LILO’s configuration file,
/etc/lilo.conf.
Editing lilo.conf
Editing lilo.conf is easy. Make sure that
you’re logged in as root, and load the file into your
favorite editor, making sure to save your changes and to save the
file as ASCII text. You’ll edit lilo.conf for a number of
reasons:
s You are testing a new kernel and want to be able to boot the same Linux partition with more than one kernel.
s You want to add password protection to a partition.
s You have a hardware setup that requires you to specify special options, such as booting a remote filesystem.
s Your kernel is called something other
than /vmlinuz or is in a nonstandard place, such as /etc.
Listing 3.1 shows a sample lilo.conf file.
Listing 3.1. A sample lilo.conf.
# Start LILO global section
Boot = /dev/hda
Prompt
Vga = normal
Ramdisk = 0
# End LILO global section
image = /vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda3
label = linux
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
other = /dev/hda1
label = dos
table = /dev/hda
You can add the parameters listed in Table 3.1 to your
/etc/lilo.conf file. They could also be given at the boot prompt,
but it is much simpler for them to reside in your /etc/lilo.conf
file. Note that only 13 of LILO’s 23 different options are
listed here. See LILO’s documentation for details.
Table 3.1. /etc/lilo.conf configuration
parameters.
Parameter Description
Tells the kernel the name of the device that contains the
boot=<boot_device>
boot sector. If boot is omitted, the boot sector is read
from the device that is currently mounted as root.
Generates linear sector addresses instead of sector/head/
linear
cylinder addresses, which can be troublesome, especially
when used with the compact option. See LILO’s
documentation for details.
Installs the specified file as the new boot sector. If
install=<boot_sector>
install is omitted, /etc/lilo/boot.b is used as the
default.
You can use this to display the file’s text and customize
message=<message_file>
the boot prompt, with a maximum message of up to
65,535 bytes. Rerun /sbin/lilo if you change this file.
Turns on progress reporting. Higher numbers give more
verbose=<level>
3
verbose output, and the numbers can range from 1 to 5.
This also has a -v and -q option; see LILO’s documenta-
tion for details.
LILO
Copies the original boot sector to <backup_file> (which backup=<backup_file>
can also be a device, such as /dev/null) instead of to
/etc/lilo/boot.<number>.
Similar to backup, this option will overwrite the current
force-backup<backup_file>
backup copy, but backup is ignored if force-backup is
used.
Requires you to type a boot prompt entry.
prompt
Sets a time-out (in tenths of a second) for keyboard
timeout=<tsecs>
input, which is handy if you want to boot right away or
wait for longer than the default five seconds. Tip: To
make LILO wait indefinitely for your keystrokes, use a
value of 0.
Allows input from the designated serial line and the PC’s
serial=<parameters>
keyboard to LILO. A break on the serial line mimics a
Shift key press from the console. For security, password-
protect all your boot images when using this option. The
parameter string has the syntax <port>,<bps><parity>
<bits>, as in /dev/ttyS1,8N1. The components <bps>,
Table 3.1. continued
Parameter Description
and <bits> can be omitted. If one of these
<parity>,
components is omitted, all the following components
have to be omitted as well. Additionally, the comma has
to be omitted if only the port number is specified. See
LILO’s documentation for details.
Ignore corrupt partition tables.
ignore-table
Use this to password protect your boot images.
password=<password>
This keyword is placed after a definition for a partition.
unsafe
The keyword tells LILO not to attempt to read the
MBR or that disk’s partition table entry. You can declare
all the partitions in your system as a log of all existing
partitions and then place the unsafe keyword entry to
prevent LILO from reading it.
After making your changes to lilo.conf, make sure to run
/sbin/lilo. You should also always run /sbin/lilo after installing
a new kernel.
