VMs are now automatically connected to a virtual serial port, and we have exposed this serial port through the sipb-xen-console server. If you configure your VM to use this as a serial console, it is possible to remotely access your VMs serial console over ssh.

To enable the serial console for Debian or Ubuntu machines, there are excellent instructions at ​https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SerialConsoleHowto. Note that if you installed your machine with the autoinstaller, this is already set up for you.

Once you've enabled the serial console and rebooted your VM, you can access it by running

ssh MACHINE-NAME@xvm-console.mit.edu

You will need to authenticate to the server using Kerberos tickets. If that doesn't mean anything to you, then be sure to ssh in from an Athena machine.

Default autoinstalled machines have no root password, so you will be able to log in as root on the console without a password. Note that if you install something like debathena-login that lets you log in with your kerberos password, this effectively gives root a password and prevents you from logging in without a password at the console.

Note: console.xvm.mit.edu (as given in xvm.mit.edu/help) and sxc.mit.edu point to the same address as sipb-xen-console.