Linux – On a linux server, how to make iLO’s remote console go somewhere other than the login prompt

consolelinux

I have a server I'd like to appliance-ize. It is running CentOS linux and I'd like to make it so when logging onto the system via the console (In this case, using iLO's remote console) they are given a different custom made menu instead of the standard linux login/shell. How do I do this?

(My limited google-fu leads me to the inittab, but this ventures well beyond my comfort level with linux. So I'm not sure if this is the right path.)

Best Answer

My friend, I think that you are thinking iLO does something other than what it does.

iLO is an interface to a virtual display. Other than a rough VNC session to the video I/O stream (not even X:0; more like the display adapter itself) and Keyboard & Mouse inpute, you can't interact with the system. iLO is for out-of-band management. It's better than hooking up a crash cart (especially if your server is in another country, state, datacenter, room, or laziness range), but the interaction could be said to be screen-based.

What you see is what you get.

This makes it extremely useful and resilient. This is what allows you to see the machine from power-application (before power is on!) to watch and interact with the BIOS, RAID, and netboot, or select booting to other media.