Serial console install

[Marian Hettwer]

On Do, 7.04.2005, 13:23, Eric Anderson sagte:
> Sławek Żak wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'd like to ask what's the reason behind requiring a keyboard during
>> FreeBSD install. Headless configuration is the most common in
>> datacenters and toying with KVM and VGA cable is often a no-no
>> (distance in the issue my case).
>>
>> Therefore why don't we introduce a prompt in the CD loader saying:
>>
>> "Press any key to install from video console..."
>>
>> Now wait 30s. If no key is pressed boot with console=comconsole.
>>
>> It would make my life sooo much easier and won't confuse noobs too much.
>
> Maybe so, but then people who do have video consoles plugged in would have
> to hit a key to keep going.
>
True. But people with a Monitor and a Keyboard connected could hit Enter.
People with a headless Server just don't have a possiblity to hit any key
to initalize the installation the way they want.

Isn't it possible to send out the output of FreeBSD's bootloader to VGA
and serial console ?
This would be perfect. We could have a point in our bootmenu to hit a
specific key for serial console install, or for VGA based install.
But I believe for the time being it's not possible to have the same output
on console and vga.

On the other hand, would it be possible to create a PXE Image with serial
console enabled ?
Usually if you have servers which are headless they are additionally
pretty far away... Network Boot is the way to go :)

> Why not just read this:
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-advanced.html
>
well, this is an option, but however, you have to change the floppies all
the time. Floppies suck ;)

Just some thoughts...
Best Regards and good luck,
Marian