At Fri, 26 Nov 2021 11:06:30 +0000 (UTC), steve%prd.co.uk@localhost (Steve Blinkhorn) wrote: Subject: Emergency: headless server boot advice needed (repost) > > I have a headless server in a remote data centre which was last > rebooted in June 20128. Now that's a fun typo! Is it 2012, 2018, or some time far in the future? :-) I'm guessing 2018 is the right number? > I have been doing health checks prior to > uipgrading to 9.2 and find that the OOB remote management console is > not responding. So, given what you wrote below, do you mean the console on com0? I.e. a serial console? > Data centre staff report that hte VGA port appears dead on attaching > either a net-connected KVM unit or a physical monitor. dmesg.boot > reports the console as com0:. > > Is there any way of redirecting the console prior to a power cycle > from within NetBSD so I can use a virtual console (via the KVM) So, if the VGA port is dead too, how is the virtual KVM going to help? I've seen serial consoles go unresponsive on my servers (Dell and others), only to work again after a hardware reset (not even a power cycle, and sometimes just a normal reboot is enough). If indeed you do currently have it configured for serial console access, and if you are relatively sure (via inspection of timestamps on critical config files) that you haven't accidentally changed something that might cause it to fail to return to a sufficiently operating state (i.e. so that you can gain remote access), and if you can have someone in real life stand before it while you reboot it, perhaps you can shut it down and have them hit the hardware reset button (assuming it has one). That'll be safer than a power cycle, and if it doesn't reboot then the hardware was too far gone to survive your upgrade anyway. So, do backups first, of course. There are lots of caveats in there, and if it does reboot OK maybe the console will come back and maybe it won't. If not then it's likely a hardware problem and you might want to think of replacing it anyway. If the console does NOT come back then maybe you can upgrade blindly anyway, though I'm not sure I'd want to continue using it for long without console access. I've got a remote server where I can't get to the console (Dell iDRAC) at the moment due to apparent network congestion problems. I crashed it yesterday but it rebooted OK on its own but I'm a little worried it might end up at the "press any key to reboot" prompt if I'm not ultra-careful. -- Greg A. Woods <gwoods%acm.org@localhost> Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods%robohack.ca@localhost> Planix, Inc. <woods%planix.com@localhost> Avoncote Farms <woods%avoncote.ca@localhost>
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