Remote access problem-no ssh;local console rapid scrolling screen no login prompt
 

I have a DELL 2950 sitting at a remote datacenter running CentOS 5 that I need help on.

I locked myself out remotely earlier today with a bad IPTables script, remote hands plugged in a crash cart, so I could get them to turn off iptables, but when the guy plugged the monitor in, the screen initially said "Can't Display this Video Mode" and was black.

I got him to hit CTRL+ALT+F1 - and it should've dropped him to a prompt; but what he got instead is a rapid scrolling screen of what appears to be console logging for something running on that server. I was only able to get a sample of the message, but I'm not entirely sure that's the issue here.

I'm wondering if there is a key-stroke combination of some sort that can break this scrolling. We tried CTRL-C, which stopped it for a moment, but not long enough for the login prompt to appear.

I'd rather not have to reboot it, and a little time on my hands, but not long. Any ideas? I already called DELL Enterprise OS Support and they didnt know what to do. :/

Many thanks in advance

Could be a runaway process, but we'd need to know what the msgs said.
You can try ctrl-s to pause a scrolling screen. Won't get you a login prompt, but you will have time to write stuff down.
ctrl-q to unpause, iirc.
You could also try any of ctrl-alt-f2, ctrl-alt-f3 ... to ctrl-alt-f7

CTRL+ALT+2 did the trick. Thanks guys