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Boot Menu

When a NetManager is first powered on or rebooted, a boot menu is displayed before the operating system is loaded. This will be just after the BIOS/uEFI screens have completed. N.B. This is not applicable to NetManager when virtualised on XenServer.

The boot menu on latest NetManagers looks like this:

Welcome to NetManager from Precedence Technologies
==================================================

Please choose boot method or wait to boot normally

     1. Boot with standard kernel (default)
     2. Boot with no SMP
     3. Drop to bootloader command prompt
     4. Switch to serial console on first serial port
     5. Boot into single user mode

Choose an option; RETURN for default; SPACE to stop countdown
Option 1 will be chosen in 5

If you do not do anything, in 5 seconds the first option will be chosen. The seconds will count down on the last line.

The options in more detail:

1. Normal boot
2. Boot as normal, but only enable 1 CPU. This is only used for debugging
3. Will switch to a powerful boot prompt allow various commands to be typed in. The menu options are just shortcuts to boot commands.
4. If the NetManager has its serial port connected to another machine with a null-modem cable, this will allow the rest of the boot process to be controlled from a serial terminal program (such as Hyperterm or kermit) on that machine. This is useful for remotely fixing a machine that will not boot.
5. Load the kernel as normal, but stop in Single User Mode.

Bootloader command prompt (advanced usage only)

The command prompt allows you to load a different kernel (the core part of the operating system) or to alter certain options to work around hardware issues. This will never be necessary on supported and approved hardware.

Some useful commands:

• boot - boot as normal
• boot -1 - boot as normal, but disable extra CPUs
• boot -2 - boot as normal, but disable ACPI (useful if booting hangs or devices such as network cards or harddiscs are missing normally)
• ls /kernels - lists the alternative kernels
• boot /kernels/GENERIC - boot the alternative kernel called GENERIC

Boot menu if NetManager virtualisation module installed

Menu is similar, but gives option to boot with virtualisation disabled (option 2) with the default being to run virtualisation services.

Welcome to NetManager from Precedence Technologies
==================================================

Please choose boot method or wait to boot normally

     1. Boot NetManager as virtualisation server
     2. Boot standard NetManager (no virtualisation)
     3. Drop to bootloader command prompt
     4. Switch to serial console on first serial port
     5. Boot standard into single user mode

Choose an option; RETURN for default; SPACE to stop countdown
Option 1 will be chosen in 5