[ale] Server Fatal?

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On Thu 2007-07-26 10:20:05 -0400, Christopher Fowler wrote:

> I do not deploy memtest86 on these machines.  This particular
> machine is in Florida.  What I could do is add a grub entry for it
> and then have the user run the test and see what it says.

If you've got a serial console attached to the machine, it's very easy
to recompile memtest86+ on the machine to use the serial console.

That way you can handle it all remotely.  IIRC, the recompilation
simply involves changing a couple #defines to enable serial console
access, choose which port, baud rate, parity, and bits/byte.

Also, using memtest86+ over a serial line allows you to log its output
(instead of having to take a snapshot of the screen, or whatever).
Once it's working, you can of course also log everything else (such as
kernel messages that might otherwise fly by).

if you manage more than a couple remote machines, sorting out serial
consoles is a worthwhile task.

        --dkg