# Ctrl+Alt+Entf while the kernel boots / displays status msgs

## haaner

Hi there,

I hope anybody here can help me:

I know times, when it was possible to soft-reset the machine while the kernel booted,

via the Ctrl+Alt+Del keyboard combo. This was possible even *before* the INIT process started.

Nowadays I can't reset the machine while the kernel boots. I have to wait *until* INIT has been started. 

From then on it is possible to reboot the machine with the keyboard combo.

*BUT*: I am looking for the old-fashioned (Ctrl+Alt+Del) way to reset my machine *before* INIT gets into play.

Can anybody enlighten me?   :Idea:   Am I missing a certain kernel configuration variable?   :Question: 

Thank you very much!

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## disi

Might be that they changed something in the newer kernel?

I found this one here:

http://homepages.cwi.nl/~aeb/linux/man2html/man5/proc.5.html

 *Quote:*   

> ctrl-alt-del — Controls whether Ctrl-Alt-Delete gracefully restarts the computer using init (0) or forces an immediate reboot without syncing the dirty buffers to disk (1). 

 

What kernel do you use?

Default is 0 in 2.6 kernels

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## haaner

Well, for this to work, the proc filesystem has to be mounted.

But I am looking for a way to do this before ANYTHING gets mounted!

[ I am using the kernel 2.6.30-gentoo-r8 ]

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## disi

So you want the system to restart immediately during bootloader and hardware initialization but gracefully restart during init?

I thought more of a kernel command line or something like "ctrl-alt-del=1". Did you check your BIOS if there is some setting?

//edit: I actual forgot to test that at home yesterday   :Embarassed: 

//edit: there doesn't seem to be any option in the linux kernel: http://kernel.xc.net/search.cgi?string=reboot&version=2.6.30&arch=x86

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## haaner

 *disi wrote:*   

> So you want the system to restart immediately during bootloader and hardware initialization but gracefully restart during init?

 

Exactly!

 *disi wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I thought more of a kernel command line or something like "ctrl-alt-del=1".
> 
> 

 

Well, if there was such a option -- it would be quite nice ...

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## disi

I cannot find anything...

How about using SysRq to reboot?

instead of ctrl+alt+del

use alt+SysRq+b (alt because it's the printscreen key on most keyboards)

Caution: This doesn't sync disks, it doesn't unmount or does anything else than bluntly rebooting.

//edit: alt+sysrq+s syncs the disks, alt+sysrq+u unmounts the disks

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## haaner

Aha, now I found the solution:

Ctrl+Alt+Del is delivered to the kernel as soon as the keyboard driver has been loaded ...  :Wink: 

That means: As soon as the message "input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input0"

gets displayed, Ctrl+Alt+Del / SysRq Combos work as expected.

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