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How to interrupt a virtual machine (VM) boot process

Issue

You may need to interrupt a Virtual Machine (VM) boot process for various technical or administrative reasons. For example, there may be configuration errors, required testing, security concerns, or critical maintenance and updates that require a boot interrupt. Once interrupted, you can access the operating system in recovery mode in order to take action.

Interrupting the boot process will typically allow you to access the operating system recovery process. Depending on your VM's operating system, recovery may be presented in the command line as a simple menu, such as the Ubuntu operating system recovery menu.

Solution

This example shows how to interrupt the boot process on a VM running the Ubuntu 22.04 operating system.

  1. Login to your Rumble Cloud project.
  2. Go to Compute > Instances to view the VM dashboard.
  3. Find the target VM for the boot interrupt and click the Console button under the Actions column in the list of VMs.
  4. Click the Send CtrlAltDel button to restart the machine.
  5. Click into the console window and press and hold the Esc key. The process may take a few seconds to interrupt.
  6. Once interrupted, the VM console window typically displays an operating system menu that allows you to take action on the VM. For Ubuntu operating systems, select Advanced Options for Ubuntu.
  7. Select the appropriate image version and kernel version with the recovery mode.
  8. After the system reboots, the system displays a recovery menu.
  9. Select root to access the VM as root user.

These instructions for interacting with operating system menus and options may vary depending on the operating system installed on your VM.