Just a quick note on the command to use to start up a RHEL / CentOS 5.x install from the serial console. This can come in handy if you’re using a modem and serial port for out of band management, and the need to conduct a remote reinstall arises. These settings start up a console on ttys0 (Serial Port 1) with the standard 9600/8-N-1 settings.
linux console=ttyS0,9600n8