Don Jackson wrote: > I use serial consoles on all my OpenBSD servers for remote serial > access to the machines, both during initial install via pxeboot, and > later on in regular use after the install. > I'm currently running either 4.2 or 4.1 on all my machines. > > The FAQ states: > > Only the first serial port (com0) is supported for console on > amd64 and i386 > > http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq7.html#SerCon > > Why is this the case?
because that's the way the code was written... > Why does OpenBSD care which serial port I use? because that's the way the code was written... > Will it simply not work if I specify "set tty com1" in /etc/boot.conf ? I certainly wouldn't plan on it working. Feel free to try. Don't whine if things work as advertised. Feel free to submit patches to make it work as you wish. BTW: it isn't as simple as you think to do it "right", though if I remember right, it isn't too hard to make a custom kernel that will do what you want (i.e., do it wrong). I think I remember what the issue is, but anyone who can fix it would know not to trust my memory and would have no trouble testing it and finding out. > I ask because my servers of choice are made by Rackable Systems, and > their default configuration > is to route the serial port known to as com1 to a special RJ-45 > connector, that also supports BIOS redirection, and even serial access > to power cycle the machine. > Having my OpenBSD servers use that for the console would be ideal. > FYI, my Solaris10/x86 servers happily use that port for the console, > and there is no need to > turn off Continue Console Redirection after POST, as also recommend in > the OpenBSD FAQ: > > Some BIOSs have an option to "Continue Console Redirection after > POST" (Power On Self Test), > this should be set to "OFF", so the boot loader and the kernel > can handle their own console. > > I'd very much appreciate any insight into these questions. ok, you got ONE machine you are worried about. How many different machines with serial redirection did you test with Solaris10/x86? From what I have seen, OpenBSD runs out of the box on a whole lot more hardware than Solaris x86 (go ahead, try to get Solaris x86 running on a Dell PE1950 w a PERC5/i. Took me hours to find the files needed in a usable format (hint: the 1950 doesn't have an on-board floppy), and when I finally did, I found the first drives for this combination was not written by Dell or LSI or Sun, but by an *OpenBSD* developer! (and the posting I found that helped in getting this thing going was written by a contributor to the OpenBSD FAQ!) I'm giggling at the thought of a PERC6/i...) Sadly, there is NO standard for serial console redirection. The original PC and AT didn't support it, so it's a hack a lot of vendors have provided, and they each do it differently. We'd love to have a nice little system that did the hand-off from redirection to OS port nicely, but there is no known standard way to do this on every PC that supports console redirection. Nick.
