Booting to CD and the handing off to HD

[Nathan Kinkade]

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 09:23:31PM -0700, Cristobal Miguelo wrote:
> > > On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 08:58:05PM -0700, Cristobal Miguelo wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I'm going to be working on a firewall box where I want to boot to
> > > CD and run an integrity check on the Hard Drive.  If the Hard
> > > Drive checks out OK, I want the CD to then hand off to the hard
> > > drive and boot the hard drive.
> > > 
> > > Is that possible?   What man pages and/or web pages should I read
> > > to make it happen?
> > > 
> > > Thanks!
> > > Cristobal
> > 
> >
> > Well, you could certainly mount the harddisk partitions somewhere in
> > the filesystem while running under the CDROM booted kernel.
> > However, I seriously doubt if you could change the running kernel to
> > that from the harddisk.  Why not just reboot to the harddisk after
> > you have finished your diagnostics with the CDROM?
> > 
> > Nathan
> > 
> >
>
> Thanks for the response!
> 
> I would like to have it completely automated:
> 
> The machine goes down at 4am for the check and boots to cd, then the cd
> controls the hand-off to the hard drive.  I'd like to have the BIOS
> setup to only boot the cd and if the HD checks out ok, boot up the HD. 
> That way there is a slim chance that any security breach will last
> beyond one night on my machine.  I seriously doubt a security breach
> will occur, but I want to close every door imaginable.
> 
> Anything else that could be done?
> 
> Thx
> -C
> 

What is the reason that you find it necessary to reboot the machine to a
CDROM every morning?  Are you sure that there isn't a way to run your
checks while booted to the harddisk?  I am fairly sure that you will
never find a way to have the BIOS selectively boot either the CDROM or
the HD based on some OS specific factor, such as a successful check of
the HD.  I have a feeling that there may be a better way to accomplish
your goal without a reboot to CDROM every morning.  Will you tell the
list more about what you are trying to accompish?

Nathan
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