Question Dissection: Run Commands via LILO
Note: The Question Dissection Series is designed to present a sample LPIC Exam question taken from various sources for study, providing the right and wrong answers with explanations designed to show you how questions should be read and understood. Additionally there are Notes that point to sites, resources and other tools to help you study properly for the concepts contained in the question.
Question: Run Commands via LILO
From objective 101.2 Install a Boot Manager
Which of the following LILO command options causes the foobar command to be executed upon reboot of the machine?
❑ A. lilo –b foobar
❑ B. lilo –R foobar
❑ C. lilo –v foobar
❑ D. lilo < foobar
Answer B is correct because the R option is designed to run a command upon the next system boot. Answer A is incorrect because the b option is for specifying the boot device.
Answer C is incorrect because the v option specifies verbosity when the command is run.
Answer D is incorrect because the lilo command doesn’t accept input in this fashion.
Notes: LILO allows for command execution upon next boot, and knowing how this works can shorten the cycle of a scripted installation, new software installation or updates etc. In addition, knowing how to install, configure and troubleshoot LILO is still an important skill to possess as a sysadmin, although distributions are using GRUB more than ever these days.
Several resources can be helpful in learning more about this topic, the first of which would be Chapter 1 of the current version of my LPIC 1 Exam Cram 2 book (look for it in the sidebar ->), starting on Pg 14, the second would be the lilo man pages ( man lilo ).
Any comments, suggestions or questions are welcome.
RossB
Copyright 2000-2009 Ross Brunson
