[CentOS] ssh in while in fsck

[Devin Reade]

m.roth at 5-cent.us <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote:

> My manager reminds me that "in the old Sun days", the ssh server came up
> first, *before* the fsck on boot

As others have indicated, but not in so many words, your manager is
out to lunch in this case:  ssh, once it was introduced, was started
at run level 3 (or the equivalent, for SunOS 4, which wasn't SYSV).

On old Sun hardware, you could connect to the serial port to get console.
(You could also have a graphical console if you had the add-in video
cards, but people rarely used those for anything but workstations.)
If your serial console was on a console server or serial aggregator
(like a modem server in reverse), then you could telnet into it to
get console on the Sun box.

Later, the serial console was augmented by the ALOM (which predates
the DRAC for Dells).  Originally you could only telnet into it (using
a separate management ethernet connection) which means you should
have your management interface on a separate admin net.

Between 5 and 10 years ago, Sun got around to introducing SSH to 
the ALOM.  At *that* point, you could ssh into a Sun to get console.
Everything is relative, but I wouldn't refer to that as "the old Sun
days", unless you're meaning "before Oracle".

As I've mentioned on other threads, if you need this kind of functionality
for an x86 box that doesn't have its own ALOM/DRAC/iLO (all manufacturer
names for similar functions), I'd suggest the AdderLink iPEPS (network
only) or iPEPS/DA (network + local kybd/monitor/mouse).  It uses 
encrypted VNC instead of SSH, and can be teamed with an electronic
KVM switch to allow you to use it with multiple machines.

Devin
-- 
	I don't suffer from insanity.  I enjoy every minute of it.