console no responding to key in.

[Jessie Xu]

Thanks. I will try to reboot to single user mode, change configuration
to enable serial console. 


Jessie Xu
Unix Administrator
jessie.xu at cryptologic.com
desk phone: 416 545 1453 x 5618
Skype: Jessie.xu972
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Polytropon [mailto:freebsd at edvax.de] 
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 12:50 PM
To: Jessie Xu
Cc: Chuck Swiger; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: console no responding to key in.

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:20:46 -0400, "Jessie Xu"
<Jessie.Xu at cryptologic.com> wrote:
> But I have some of consoles did work - response the key in after the 
> keyboard pluged in after.

This could be a configuration topic. In /etc/ttys you can intendedly
disable consoles (virtual terminals). If this has been the case, trying
to login locally won't work.

You could try to boot the system from a live CD or DVD to check the
configuration.

If you can reboot the machines, try to enter into single user mode. In
this case, local console login usually is enabled, but it may require
the root password.

See "man 5 ttys" for possible details.



> This is important. Almost all the servers in rack don't have keyboard 
> collected unless we need to login to console.

As it has been mentioned, connecting a PS/2 keyboard to a running
machine can be a really bad idea - even causing a defect of the PS/2
keyboard connectors.

And with USB, you're mostly unlucky on FreeBSD 4 machines due to the
lack of kbdmux / automatisms like via devd.



> I couldn't plug in the keyboard then reboot the server to get access 
> to the console.

If configured properly, it should be sufficient to press the power key
to initiate a controlled system shutdown.
This should give you the chance to try SUM or a live CD.


--
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...