bmconf - The configurator program for Smart Boot Manager

/usr/sbin/bmconf [[--themesdir themesdir] --install theme] --device device options

/usr/sbin/bmconf [--configfile filename]

With bmconf you can setup your already installed Smart Boot Manager, or you can setup a new one, and configure that. This program is not enough user friendly now, and it lacks a lot of things, that SBM can do. But I think it'll be ideal for people who want to integrate SBM to distributions. I also think SBM is a good software, and it'll be very useful if you want to do a really user friendly distribution.

Options:

--configfile filename

Use filename to retrieve installation and configuration options. If you once write a configfile you can easily reinstall, upgrade your current SBM. If you specify the configfile option, you can't use any other options. If you leave out the full command line, than this option will be default with /etc/bmconf.conf filename.

If you want to use a config file, you can find an example in the source of bmconf, and in debian package it can be found at /usr/share/doc/bmconf.conf.

--themesdir themesdir

Use the given directory as the default theme directory. If no theme file found in the current directory, than we will see the files in themesdir. If omitted, than the default will be /usr/share/bmconf.

--install theme

Install the SBM too. If this options is specified a new, empty SBM will be installed. The theme can be us (English), zh (Chinese), fr (French), de (German), hu (Hungarian), cz (Czech), ru (Russian) or es (Spainsh), or can be a file which contains the compiled, binary format SBM theme. Please note, that the themes like us, zh etc. are built-in themes, and you can't use these filenames, but you can use theme-us instead for example.

--device device

With this parameter you can give the device which got the SBM installed. Or the device where the SBM will be installed if --install is specified.

--style stylenumber

With this option, you can set which fields will be visible on startup. The 0 means show all, 1 means hide Flags, 2 means hide Flags and Number, 3 means show Name only.

--add <drive=devstr | cdrom=num>,name=menuname

Add a partiton to the Smart Boot Manager's menu. You need either drive or cdrom. The number of the first cdrom is 0. If you got more than one cdroms, the number of cdroms are sorted by IDE device order. If you only got one, you can use cdrom=0 always.

--rembynum x

Remove the x. line from boot menu.

--password record=recordnumber,password=password

Set the password as the password for recordnumber. menu item in the boot menu. You can use "" as password for set it to empty. If recordnumber is root then the root password will be altered.

--schedule record=recordnumber[,time=hh:mm-hh:mm]

Set the time as the schedule for recordnumber. menu item in the boot menu. If you leave out the time field then the schedule will be deleted for this record.

--default x

Change the default menuitem. The x must be a number, which given by the --list command in its first column.

--direct-boot x

Change the direct boot record to x. The direct boot record is the default for the next boot. After the next boot this will be unsetted. It is useful for distributions which need a restart in the installation procedure. This OSes can set this flag to them own recordnumber.

--delay x

Change the delay time before select the default menu item to start up. The x must be >=1, but <=255 if enabled and 0 if disabled.

--remlast [on|off]

With this option you can change the state of remember to the last started item flag in SBM. If this is enabled (on) SBM will remember to the last started menuitem, and this will be the default next time. --int13 [on|off] With this option you can change the state of interrupt 13 extension in SBM. If this is enabled (on) SBM will use int13 extensions for hard drive managing, with this, you can boot partitions after 1024. cylinder. You need to turn this off, if you've got a broken bios. --defrag Defrag the datas in the first cylinder. This may be useful after a lot of changes. This absolutely clean up the data part of SBM, and only datas about needed partition will be stored after this.

--seclock [on|off]

This options changes the state of security lock mode. If the security lock mode is enabled (on) every change in boot manager's configurator from SBM need confirmation with a root password. Note that this program not verify passwords, so if somebody can start this, who don't know the root password then he can change it.

--autohide x

With this option you can change the state of the autohide flag of the x. record. To know what is it, please read the manual of SBM.

"--autoactive x

With this option you can change the state of the autoactive flag of the x. record. To know what is it, please read the manual of SBM.

"--swapdriveid x

With this option you can change the state of the swapdrive flag of the x. record. To know what is it, please read the manual of SBM.

"--noautoscan

If you set this option, SBM won't scan hard drives for partitions even if the next run will its first run. This is useful, if you fully configured your SBM with this program.

The devstr must be in the following syntax for floppy drives: /dev/fdnum where num is the number of floppy drive started from zero, and in the following for hard drives: /dev/hdxpartid[:num]. Where num is the number of the hard drive started from 128 (0x80) and partid is the number of the partition on it. If you not give the num the program will use 0x80. For example: /dev/hdc6:0x81 means that I want to add the 6. partition from hdc, but this is my second (0x81) hard disk not the third. Please note, that you MUST use HEXADCIMAL numbers for num.

A complete example:

bmconf --install us --device /dev/fd0 --noautoscan

--add drive=/dev/hda,name=winyo --list

This command line will install SBM to a floppy in the first floppy drive and adds only one menuitem, which will start the master boot record on the first harddisk. And after that lists the properities of this fresh SBM on floppy drive.

Note that the full command line is atomic. So if the fifth command is unsuccessfull, than the half of the changes won't be validated. This is good, because if you make a typo, than bmconf leave all the things in the original state. It won't do the half setup.

Suzhe <su_zhe@sina.com>:

The writer of SBM. He gave me a lot of help in understanding the Smart Boot Manager and partition tables. Thanks.

If you know about any bugs, please write it to the author's email address.

This program can be downloaded from ftp://atom.hu/bmconf/

The homepage can be found at http://atom.hu/~risko/bmconf

Version 0.8 -- released at 2000.11.25 21:09

Risko Gergely

risko@debian.org risko@atom.hu