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I am looking for a solution/a way that allows me to select the boot options of a computer from another computer.

To make it clear what I mean, just consider the following example:

A local network used for testing consist of 3 computers:

  • Computer 'Control', running Ubuntu64 Server with a monitor and keyboard.
  • Computer A: a dual boot of Ubuntu LTS x64 and Ubuntu LTS x32, no mouse no keyboard
  • Computer B: same as A
  • Computer C: same as A

Use case

  1. Select on 'control' to boot A and B into Ubuntux64 and C into UbuntuX32
  2. Computer A will boot to Ubuntu LTS X64
  3. Computer B will boot to Ubuntu LTS X64
  4. Computer C will boot to Ubuntu LTS X32

The selection could be done by a program or self written script, I do not care. The full OS is installed on A,B,C. If a netboot system must be downloaded from a server for this to work it is OK, but it is not required. Preferably the local installations are used.

Is that possible to do? Are there solutions/programs that support this use case, preferably open-source?

Thanks

PS: I have found various hints to PXE but I am not sure if that supports what I am looking for, at least it would not be the typical application of it.

Edit: after the answer from [https://askubuntu.com/users/68186/user68186] I am hoping for a way to utilize a pre-boot network connection (as it is used by PXE) to get a boot option information from a central server. Maybe along the lines of loading a link to a default grub start address with a "command line option" or just a grub image with a config file I could edit on a server etc.

CatMan
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1 Answers1

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I don't think this can be done.

To select a non-default boot action, you will need network connectivity before the system boots!

A workaround is to let all three computers A, B, C, boot into the default, say Ubuntu 64bit. This can be done with wake-on-LAN. Once fully booted, you can SSH into Computer C and use:

`grub-reboot $1`

command to reboot Computer C to 32bit Ubuntu. Here $1 is the menuentry number in the grub, that starts from 0 for the first entry.

Reference:

How to enable Wake On Lan (WOL) in Ubuntu 16.04

How can I get grub2 to boot a different option only on the next boot?

There may be another way

If your computers A B and C all meet the hardware requirements for Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) then it may be possible to access BIOS (and thus possibly GRUB) through LAN while the system boots.

I don't know anything about it, and the How-To I saw is for Windows. Here is some information about AMT and Linux. In any case such a solution would not be Ubuntu specific.

Hope this helps

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user68186
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