Using serial console to connect to VMs
Working with virtual machines in the public cloud, requires us from time to time to troubleshoot operating system, boot, and network connectivity issues.
In the past, when we worked locally with physical machines, we were able to login to the server console and run commands that assisted us debug problems, but how do we accomplish the same using public clouds?
The cloud providers allow us to connect to a “serial console”, login to the operating system and run commands.
Below are the various alternatives for connecting to a serial console:
Additional references
· EC2 Serial Console for Linux instances
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-serial-console.html
· Troubleshoot Boot and Networking Issues with New EC2 Serial Console
· Azure Serial Console for Windows
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/serial-console-windows
· Azure Serial Console for Linux
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/serial-console-linux
· Serial console with Azure VMs — Troubleshooting and diagnosing
https://microsoft.github.io/AzureTipsAndTricks/blog/tip191.html
· Interacting with the serial console
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/interacting-with-serial-console
· Viewing serial port output
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/viewing-serial-port-output
· gcloud compute connect-to-serial-port
https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/compute/connect-to-serial-port
· Troubleshooting Instances Using Instance Console Connections
https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/References/serialconsole.htm
About The Author
Eyal Estrin is a cloud and information security architect, the owner of the blog Security & Cloud 24/7, with more than 20 years in the IT industry.
You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
