HMC’s console window

BM’s Hardware Management Console is known to be the best way to control and manage your IBM Power servers in the data center environment.  One of the services among the many it provides is the Virtual Console window for each LPAR.

There are times when only the Console window will provide the service you need.  Debugging, changing IP addresses, recovering a lost root password and other such tasks require this direct link to the machine.

The HMC’s console window provided by the graphical interface leaves much to be desired.  The most notable is the difficulty to cut-n-paste.  Also, you cannot log or capture a task.

A greatly under-appreciated command line utility is here to provide console access via ssh.  vtmenu.  Since vtmenu runs from an ssh session, your passwords and keystrokes are no longer sent in clear text, they are encrypted.

Use your favorite terminal emulator’s cut-n-paste, log your sessions and enjoy console time now instead of dreading it for it’s shortcomings.

A sample is shown below:

Note.  To exit vtmenu, the key sequence: “tilde tilde period” is used.   (   ~~.  )

[root@localhost ~]# ssh hscroot@10.10.55.30

Password:

Last login: Tue Oct 12 17:09:38 2010 from 10.10.255.1

hscroot@hmc:~> vtmenu

Retrieving name of managed system(s) . . . LAB510-p510-SN10AA1EA   LAB551-p550-SN10BB2CF

———————————————————-

Managed Systems:  ———————————————————-

1) LAB510-p510-SN10AA1EA

2) LAB551-p550-SN10BB2CF

Enter Number of Managed System.   (q to quit): 2

————————————————–

Partitions On Managed System:  LAB551-p550-SN10BB2CF

OS/400 Partitions not listed

———————————————————-

1)    LAB551                               Not Activated

2)    QAData                                 Not Activated

Enter Number of Running Partition (q to quit): 1

Opening Virtual Terminal On Partition LAB551 . . .

Open in progress..

Open in progress

Open Completed.

***   FCode LP10000 PCI_Bus (lpfc) Version  1.41a2   ***

***   FCode LP10000 PCI_Bus (lpfc) Version  1.41a2   ***

***   FCode LP10000 PCI_Bus (lpfc) Version  1.41a2   ***

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