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.
