A server at work today appeared unresponsive to all network traffic. The machine in question doesn't have a k/v/m terminal; it's configured to use a serial console.
So I connected to the serial console and got /etc/issue (with all the \char sequences properly expanded).
At the login: prompt I typed root and pressed Enter. Several seconds went by before the Password: prompt was displayed. I typed the password and soon saw
Login timed out after 60 seconds
At which point /etc/issue and the login: prompt reappeared.
Later investigation revealed the load average was hovering around 100, so it's unlikely the machine would be able to process the username and password in under a minute.
I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to lengthen that timeout value from 60 to, say, 180. This isn't the first time I've wanted to kill a runaway process and been unable to get a console because of that timeout.