Rescue (Single User) Mode?

Submitted by yngens on Wed, 10/08/2014 - 19:36

Is it possible with Cloudmin to reboot a guest system in a rescue (single user) mode?

Status: 
Active

Comments

Submitted by JamieCameron on Wed, 10/08/2014 - 20:52

There isn't any built in support for a rescue mode, but an option to boot a VM from a separate rescue disk isn't a bad idea. Or you can use the file manager in cloudmin to access the filesystem of a down VM.

Submitted by yngens on Wed, 10/08/2014 - 22:41

Are you planning to implement this some day in the future? The reason why I am asking is that some Cloudmin alternatives offer different "run level"s to their users like, for example:

Default Run Level
Single user mode
init=/bin/bash

and I wondered if virtualization methods like KVM or Xen support this why Cloudmin doesn't?

Submitted by JamieCameron on Wed, 10/08/2014 - 23:24

KVM and Xen don't have (as far as I know) any way to force a VM to boot into single user mode.

The alternative would be to have Cloudmin configure the VM to boot off a rescue image, which you could then access using the Graphical Console page. This would be do-able, with some work..

Submitted by yngens on Thu, 10/09/2014 - 01:13

The alternative would be to have Cloudmin configure the VM to boot off a rescue image, which you could then access using the Graphical Console page.

A separate VM? This would add another layer of complexity for providing proper access to users. However, sounds nice way to go if it'll be possible to boot off rescue image within the same client VM. Anyway, this was not a priority for us, so you can mark this as closed or leave active if you want to add some new feature to Cloudmin about this request. Just throwing different ideas picked up looking at other systems.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Thu, 10/09/2014 - 11:34

It wouldn't be a separate VM - just the same one with another disk image temporarily attached.

Submitted by yngens on Thu, 10/09/2014 - 13:09

Can you elaborate how do I create that kind of rescue image?

Submitted by JamieCameron on Thu, 10/09/2014 - 13:28

I haven't figured that out yet - if we were to implement this feature, we'd have to build or find a suitable rescue image and include it with Cloudmin.