On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 05:25:22PM -0400, Brian Mathis wrote:
With remote console, you might be able to get in, but I'm not sure if the other gettys are running before the fsck starts.
With a true serial console you get access to ''the'' console, where the message about proceeding with the fsck would normally appear. The remote serial console HOWTO is old but covers this ground fairly well:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/index.html
It addresses getting access to the BIOS, the bootloader, and the kernel / getty, so you have access to pretty much the entire boot process. This has saved my bacon quite a few times.
Serial console aggregators run less than $1000, and you can ssh into them to get access to a given console. On mine, for example, I might do
ssh admin:deadbox@serial-console.example.com
to get to deadbox's console.
--keith