Avoiding ejecting the diskette...

[Ronan KERYELL]

We are developping a PC Linux based active network using FAI as the
installation procedure and we are looking forward a lazy and robust
installation to avoid playing with the diskette in and out because the
computers can be everywhere, specially in far away unattended
places... :-(

How can we reinstall a computer if its hard disk or the file systems on
it are flaky ? 

We are thinking to always boot on the FAI diskette, testing with a bootp
request if a FAI installation is really requested and, if not, transfer
the control from the running FAI Linux to the Linux on the hard disk. It
is this last stage we don't know about... A kind of lilo we could exec
from a running Linux...

By exterior control, we test if the PC is OK and, if not, set up the bootp
server to ignite a FAI re-install.

Any pointer on overlapping an OS by another instance or some ideas ?

By the way, is there on PC an equivalent of a watchdog reset as on Sun
computers that would reboot the PC if the OS hangs ?

In fact, having access to the eeprom on a Sun is very useful to do all
these kind of dirty tricks and it is a pity not having a equivalent
standard on the PCs... :-(

Thank you,
-- 
    Ronan KERYELL              |\/
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