When do you need to run the lilo command?

Question

While lilo may be out dated, and surpassed by Grub, it is one of the questions on the lpic practice exam.

When do you need to run the lilo command?

The options are :

After every boot
After every modification of the lilo configuration file
After installing a new kernel with a new name in /boot
After overwriting the old kernel in /boot with a new one
Only the first time after installing LILO

I'm pretty sure you need to run lilo under the following situations:

After every modification of the lilo configuration file
After installing a new kernel with a new name in /boot

I'm not sure if you need to run lilo if you overwrite the old kernel

The practic exam doesn't provide the correct answer, and I can't find anything in the man page or in the first dozen results of google that documents when to run the lilo command.

Do you need to run the lilo command if you overwrite your old kernel ?

B and D. The full answer: any time anything changes the block map lilo has recorded. (change config, or change anything referenced in the config) — Ricky, Feb 07 '14 at 18:12

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 17:56

lilo sets up to load the kernel by creating a list of block numbers on disk, so any time that might change you have to re-run it. So when you overwrite the old kernel, as there is no guarantee that the new version overwrites the exact same places, you need to run lilo. If you run some sort of "defragmentation" on the filesystem, you'll also probably change the blocks used, need to run lilo.

When do you need to run the lilo command?

1 Answers1