I have a server that runs several operating systems and I need to switch OS without being able to be in close proximity. I can also not use Virtual machines to switch from one to another, The OS’s are installed and must be selected at boot, currently with GRUB.
Is there any way to remotely select from the Grub Menu over TCP/IP or in general network ?
Thanks. It would be very helpful.
Yes, provided that your server has some sort of remote management hardware installed. Such hardware allows to access entire server over serial console or KVM using TCP/IP networking Common techs are:
Intel AMT/ME
My Sun and Ibm Xservers has management modules, but the darn things never work properly with Linux and is severely cumbersome. The server I need this onis a 24 core sysmicro and I cant find any Linux based management software for it that actually works. PXE might be able to be converted to do the job I guess but then I have to move the OS images to NFS.
So my question is;
Is there no other way, like e.g. a tcp/ip aware version of Grub boot loader or such ?
Have you tried ipmi command from Linux? Configure server for serial console redirect over TCP/IP. Run the command from Linux box to get serial console from BIOS to grub to login console regardless of OS:
ipmitool -U USERNAME -P 'PASSWORD' -I lanplus -H server-IP-Address sol activate
I will check.
Thanks I was not aware that serial console could be redirected to tcp/ip in the administration module. Never thought about that.
I saw serial access but then thought about having to create an RS422/485 network which was counterproductive.