In this hands-on project, you use and configure the GRUB boot loader.
1. When your system has booted, switch to a command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in to the terminal using the user name of root and the password of secret.
2. At the command prompt, type cat /boot/grub/grub.conf and press Enter to view the GRUB configuration file. Can you tell where the boot loader is installed? What does each entry indicate?
3. At the command prompt, type vi /boot/grub/grub.conf and press Enter to edit the GRUB configuration file. Change the value of timeout to 0. Save your changes and quit the vi editor. How long do you have to interact with the GRUB boot loader after POST before the default OS is booted? Do you need to reinstall GRUB after making changes to the /boot/grub/grub.conf file?
4. Reboot your system by typing reboot and press Enter. Was the graphical GRUB boot screen shown after POST?
5. When your system has booted, switch to a command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in to the terminal using the user name of root and the password of secret.
6. At the command prompt, type vi /boot/grub/grub.conf and press Enter to edit the GRUB configuration file. Change the value of timeout to 10. Save your changes and quit the vi editor. How long do you have to interact with the GRUB boot loader after POST before the default OS is booted?
7. Reboot your system by typing reboot and pressing Enter. After the POST, note the graphical GRUB boot screen. How many seconds do you have to interrupt the automatic boot process? Press any key on your keyboard to interact with the GRUB boot menu.
8. At the GRUB boot menu, type e to edit the configuration of GRUB. Do you recognize the entries listed? Next, type c at the GRUB boot menu to open a grub> prompt.
9. At the grub> prompt, type help and press Enter to view a list of commands you can use at the grub> prompt. Next, type displaymem at the grub> prompt and press Enter. Does GRUB recognize all the memory in your computer correctly?
10. At the grub> prompt, type cat /boot/grub/grub.conf and press Enter to view the /boot/grub/grub.conf file. Why did you have to specify the full path to grub.conf within the GRUB boot loader?
11. At the grub> prompt, type the kernel line shown in Step 10 and press Enter. This loads the kernel into memory.
12. At the grub> prompt, type the initrd line shown in Step 10 and press Enter. This loads the initialization ramdisk image into memory.
13. At the grub> prompt, type boot and press Enter to continue the boot process using the Linux kernel and initialization ramdisk image loaded into memory during the previous two steps. Allow the system to boot normally.
14. After the system has loaded successfully, switch to a command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in to the terminal using the user name of root and the password of secret.
15. At the command prompt, type grub-md5-crypt and press Enter. When prompted, type secret and press Enter. Repeat the password when prompted again and press Enter. Record the encrypted password returned for future reference.
16. At the command prompt, type vi /boot/grub/grub.conf and press Enter to edit the GRUB configuration file. While in the vi editor, position the cursor on the line that says splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz.
17. Next, type o to open a line underneath the splashimage line in insert mode, and type the following (where
password --md5
18. Save your changes and quit the vi editor.
19. Reboot your system by typing reboot and pressing Enter. At the graphical GRUB boot screen, press any key on your keyboard to open the GRUB boot menu. Observe the legend. Note that you must press the p key to access the configuration of GRUB. Type p to edit the configuration of GRUB. Enter the password of secret and press Enter. Is the GRUB boot menu displayed?
20. Press Enter to boot the default OS.
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