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xoundboy

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how to access the shell of a centos VM in VPC2007 without networking?

I have just installed a Centos 5.3 VM under VPC2007 and I then set the runlevel in inittab to 5 so that it reboots into Gnome. Unfortunately VPC doesn't display the Gnome desktop because it doesn't support 24bit graphics so I can't actually use the VPC console to control this VM now - the display is screwed up. Also, networking has not been configured so I can't login to the shell either to edit eh /etc/X11 file to change the bit depth of the Centos display. Now I'm completely stuck! Any ideas?
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kworks

1- use the boot media (iso file) of your distro to access root shell.

2- edit /etc/inittab file. Look for the following line
id:5:initdefault:
Change the 5 to 3. Save and restart.

You will now boot each time to level 3. If you don't have the media, use boot options in Grub. Type "Single" and enter to boot into Single mode.
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ASKER

Hi

thanks for the response and sorry for the delay

I've just tried both of your approaches but can't get either one to work.

I mounted the Centos install CD but couldn't find a way of accessing the root shell - all I could see is different installation methods - no way of just booting the existing install

I tried typing Single into the grub command line but it says unrecognised command.

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kworks

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yes, that worked! great! thanks a lot