Takeover.sh – Wipe and reinstall a running Linux system via SSH without reboot
Pretty cool, although I'm pretty sure I would never use something like this.<p>What has saved my skin on a number of occasions is the ability to boot remote servers into rescue mode and chroot into the broken system. That way you can use package managers, all your diagnostic tools, and everything else the boot image doesn't provide.<p>Basically you just mount the different partitions and then chroot just swaps /proc /sys /dev of the rescue image with the real ones, and BAM you're back in business.<p>For details see threads like:
<a href="http://superuser.com/questions/111152/whats-the-proper-way-to-prepare-chroot-to-recover-a-broken-linux-installation" rel="nofollow">http://superuser.com/questions/111152/whats-the-proper-way-t...</a><p>I know that for many of you this isn't rocket surgery, but for those who don't know you have to google for "chroot" when you boot into a rescue image and discover you can't do anything, you might just remember this post.