How to call dban fron grub ?

How to call dban fron grub ?

[J. Bakshi]

Hello developers,

I think ( please correct me if I am wrong ) I need not say more about dban (Darik's Boot And Nuke); a HDD data eraser.
dban is shipped with syslinux to fit into both Cd and USB stick. What I am trying to achieve is to call dban by grub2.
As per the syslinux.cfg; calling dban with shell is done by

`````` syslinux.cfg ````````

LABEL  shell
KERNEL kernel.bzi
APPEND initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/ram0 init=/rc nuke="exec ash"
`````````````````

dban comes as floppy image as dban_1_0_7_i386.ima which has the kernel and initrd image ( I have also confirmed by mount it through loopback device and get the same ). To call it from grub with loopback I have done as below [ Note: I have put dban_1_0_7_i386.ima in reiserfs partition (hd0,2) ]

``````````
menuentry "dban"
{
loopback loop (hd0,2)/dban_1_0_7_i386.ima
linux (loop)/kernel.bzi nuke="exec ash"
initrd (loop)/initrd.gz
}
````````````

Grub calls dban successfully but immediately computer restarts. It happens again and again whenever I call dban. Also checked by

linux (loop)/kernel.bzi root=/dev/ram0 init=(loop)/dban_1_0_7_i386.ima/rc nuke="exec ash" 

but no luck. 

Does anyone of you have the luck to call dban from grub2 ?

Re: How to call dban fron grub ?

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Freitag, den 07.08.2009, 22:47 +0530 schrieb J. Bakshi:
> Hello developers,
> 
> I think ( please correct me if I am wrong ) I need not say more about dban (Darik's Boot And Nuke); a HDD data eraser.
> dban is shipped with syslinux to fit into both Cd and USB stick. What I am trying to achieve is to call dban by grub2.
> As per the syslinux.cfg; calling dban with shell is done by
> 
> `````` syslinux.cfg ````````
> 
> LABEL  shell
> KERNEL kernel.bzi
> APPEND initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/ram0 init=/rc nuke="exec ash"
> `````````````````
> 
> dban comes as floppy image as dban_1_0_7_i386.ima which has the kernel and initrd image ( I have also confirmed by mount it through loopback device and get the same ). To call it from grub with loopback I have done as below [ Note: I have put dban_1_0_7_i386.ima in reiserfs partition (hd0,2) ]
> 
> ``````````
> menuentry "dban"
> {
> loopback loop (hd0,2)/dban_1_0_7_i386.ima
> linux (loop)/kernel.bzi nuke="exec ash"
> initrd (loop)/initrd.gz
> }
> ````````````
> 
> Grub calls dban successfully but immediately computer restarts. It happens again and again whenever I call dban. Also checked by
> 
> linux (loop)/kernel.bzi root=/dev/ram0 init=(loop)/dban_1_0_7_i386.ima/rc nuke="exec ash" 
> 
> but no luck. 
> 
> Does anyone of you have the luck to call dban from grub2 ?
> 
> 

Try with the old linux loader with linux16 and initrd16

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer

Re: How to call dban fron grub ?

[J. Bakshi]

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:35:09 +0200
Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de> wrote:
[..........]
> > 
> > Does anyone of you have the luck to call dban from grub2 ?
> > 
> >   
> 
> Try with the old linux loader with linux16 and initrd16
[..........]

WORKING !! it is working :-) you are a hero.

Re: How to call dban fron grub ?

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 11:25:57AM +0530, J. Bakshi wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:35:09 +0200
> Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de> wrote:
> [..........]
> > > 
> > > Does anyone of you have the luck to call dban from grub2 ?
> > > 
> > >   
> > 
> > Try with the old linux loader with linux16 and initrd16
> [..........]
> 
> WORKING !! it is working :-) you are a hero.

I wonder why doesn't our current linux loader fail gracefuly and tell user
to use linux16.  I thought we had code specifically to do this!

  if (! (lh.loadflags & GRUB_LINUX_FLAG_BIG_KERNEL))
    {
      grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_OS, "zImage doesn't support 32-bit boot"
#ifdef GRUB_MACHINE_PCBIOS
                  " (try with `linux16')"
#endif
                  );
      goto fail;
    }

  /* FIXME: 2.03 is not always good enough (Linux 2.4 can be 2.03 and
     still not support 32-bit boot.  */
  if (lh.header != grub_cpu_to_le32 (GRUB_LINUX_MAGIC_SIGNATURE)
      || grub_le_to_cpu16 (lh.version) < 0x0203)
    {
      grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_OS, "version too old for 32-bit boot"
#ifdef GRUB_MACHINE_PCBIOS
                  " (try with `linux16')"
#endif
                  );
      goto fail;
    }

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."