Grub problem

[Rick Stevens]

On Tue, 2007-05-08 at 21:08 -0400, Tod wrote:
> Tod Merley wrote:
> > On 5/3/07, Tod <tod at stthomasepc.org> wrote:
> >> I'm trying to stabilize a RH9 machine so I can upgrade to FC6.  For some
> >> reason GRUB is ignoring the timeout and upon reboot leaves the boot
> >> screen up without ever booting the default image.
> >>
> >> Has anyone ever heard of this.  Anything I can check?
> >>
> >> Thanks - Tod
> >>
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> >>
> > 
> > Hi Tod!
> > 
> > I am not sure exactly what you are saying.
> > 
> > Can you hit a key (in particular escape) when the boot screen
> > (splash?) first comes up and see the boot menu?
> 
> 
> I'm actually assisting a remote user.  The problem is that if the 
> machine reboots, which it magically seems to be doing every Saturday,
> and there is no one around, it sits at the Grub splash screen until 
> someone shows up on Monday and selects a kernel to boot to.  After that 
> everything is fine.

I'd be checking every crontab I can find for the reboot issue.  I'd also
be checking the machine for rootkits and other malware.  This sounds
like the machine's "owned" by a hacker.

> grub.conf has a valid and accurate default boot image and has a valid 
> but non-working timeout (10 seconds).  It should be booting up to the 
> default image after 10 seconds which it is not.  Very weird.
> 
> I got feedback from the remote admin who suggested the problem might be 
> a result of him running the machine without a keyboard or mouse.  My 
> thought is if that were the case then the BIOS would be complaining well 
> before the point when the grub splash screen is presented.

Not necessarily, but I doubt that's the issue.  I'd make sure grub is
updated via yum, then rerun the grub-install, just to make sure you have
a valid grub.  If the machine was compromised, then anything's possible,
including a trojan horse grub.

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- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
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-             To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.               -
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