Cannot install using serial console
Jeremy Chadwick
freebsd at jdc.parodius.com
Fri Sep 10 15:38:33 UTC 2010
On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 05:18:00PM +0200, Jeremie Le Hen wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 04:27:26AM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> > > > As far as I know you need also to enable a serial terminal in /etc/ttys.
> > >
> > > Yeah, this came to my mind too but I check on the installation CD, there
> > > is no /etc/ttys.
> >
> > This is normal.
> >
> > Can you try hacking up a solution for yourself based on what I've
> > documented with regards to PXE booting? There will be pieces which
> > obviously don't apply to you because you're booting from physical media,
> > but some of the adjustments (to the bootloader, etc.) you can try.
> >
> > http://jdc.parodius.com/freebsd/pxeboot_serial_install_8.html
>
> But as far as I understand the handbook, this is not required to perform
> the installation through sysinstall(8) on a serial console. Modifying
> /boot/loader.conf on the installation media is enough according to
> chapter 2.12.1. Am I wrong?
Nah you're not wrong -- I'm just not sure what the VM might be doing
with/to the serial port. I don't know what KVM you're using on Linux,
but does the VM machine have a BIOS? If so, does it offer something
like serial console redirect capability? If so, and it's enabled, it
could/might be conflicting with the OS.
The reason I mention this: on some x86 systems that offer BIOS-level
console redirection capability, the kernel (confirmed on both FreeBSD
and Linux) can, depending on circumstances I'm not sure of, lock up the
OS hard.
If the VM offers such a feature and you're not using it, try it (and
remove the comconsole stuff from your loader.conf). You might end up
with VGA-over-serial that way, and it might suffice.
I imagine some form of getty(8) must be in use under the FreeBSD
installation environment, because you can switch virtual consoles via
Alt-<F1/F2...> as I'm sure you know.
> > One thing worth pointing out is that you stated the system that you're
> > trying to use serial console on is actually running under a VM on Linux:
> >
> > > I tried to install FreeBSD (201008 -CURRENT snapshot, but I don't think
> > > it's important here) in a KVM-backed virtual machine on a headless Linux
> > > host, following section 2.12.1 of the handbook.
> >
> > Can you provide a full dmesg prior to the "/stand/sysinstal" output
> > happening? You don't need to boot verbose (yet), but it would help with
> > regards to determining what the kernel is seeing device-wise. Yes it
> > matters.
>
> Yes, I've actually already posted it in my original message:
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-September/058703.html
Thanks much -- for some reason that part of the Email is missing for me.
uart0: <Non-standard ns8250 class UART with FIFOs> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
uart0: [FILTER]
uart0: console (9600,n,8,1)
It sure looks like it's console, but I'm not sure if there are
implications/bugs that might stop serial I/O from working past a certain
point for this type of chip, especially when under a VM.
Only other things I can think of trying, one at a time:
- Explicitly set a serial port speed using comconsole_speed in
loader.conf
- Adding boot_serial="yes" to loader.conf
- Try booting with ACPI disabled. I'm not sure this will work under a
VM, but worth a shot I guess
--
| Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |
More information about the freebsd-stable
mailing list