Console options for legacy-free mini-itx server?

[Andriy Gapon]

on 15/11/2010 06:55 Andrew Reilly said the following:
> Hi there,
> 
> I've replaced my old desktop with a laptop and a server, which
> is mostly working great.  Naturally, the server is running
> FreeBSD-stable.  It's built on an intel i3 MiniITX motherboard
> that has lots of SATA sockets, a respectable number of USB
> sockets, gigabit ethernet, eSATA, DVI, ... but no serial ports
> or PS/2 keyboard or mouse ports.  Most of the time this is fine,
> but I've found that sometimes it is very nice to be able to
> debug something at a console.  Particularly if something goes
> wrong when doing an upgrade of some sort.  I've discovered that
> I can use the old VGA screen and USB keyboard for a console if I
> have them plugged in at boot time, but if something goes wrong
> after boot, plugging a keyboard in doesn't seem to help.
> 
> If I find a USB-to-RS232 dongle, will the console mechanism be
> able to find it?  I worry that only legacy-16550-ish serial
> ports need apply.
> 
> Any other possibilities or common practices?

Is there a firewire port?

> Oh: the other thing about this system: I can't warm-start
> it, have to power down and then manually hit the power-on
> button.  Attempting to reboot leaves the console sitting at
> something like "Stopping other CPUs" forever.  I assume that
> this is a BIOS config problem, but haven't found the right
> control knob yet.  I've tried turning hyperthreading on and off:
> no difference.  Reading the kernel code around that message
> suggests that rebooting involves getting the keyboard controller
> to send an NMI, and I wonder if the legacy-free no-keyboard
> state of my system is having an effect on that, too?


-- 
Andriy Gapon