Remote Wakeup with Multi-boot?

Using DTR laptops to do heavy lifting on site in my work can be frustrating, and I'm thinking about setting up Wake-on-LAN on my office desktop workstation for remote access. This seems to be easy with only one operation system. However, I need access to multiple OSes on the same machine, so there must be a way to remotely control the boot loader to select the one I want. What can I do to make this happen?

In case it matters, I need at least one Linux install and one Windows install. Other operation systems are possible but not critical. I'd like to avoid virtual machines.

 

I don't think it can be done. WoL will start the boot sequence but that's it. I haven't heard of any tool that could enable you to make a choice which OS to boot.

 

If you set the default to linux, you can use grub-boot to reboot into windows. You need to have a couple of options set. I explained it previously here:

Is it possible to start different OSs (win/linux) using dedicated laptop buttons?

I'm not sure that you can go the other way, from windows to linux, however. There would need to be a grub utility for windows, and I'm not sure one exists.

 

Thanks.
I've thought about that as well. But as you described it seems to be a one way street.

Is is possible to do a network boot on the workstation with a thin "loader" streamed from the router? If this works it would be trivial to set-up two different version for Lin/Win, and switch between them with some control on the router.

Edit: It looks like GRUB does support network boot. Now I just need to make 2 PXE images and a daemon to switch between them on the server.

 

Cool idea, if you do that post a recap of the steps you took to configure it.

 

Intel vpro.

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