console no responding to key in.

[Jessie Xu]

Thanks.

But I have some of consoles did work - response the key in after the
keyboard pluged in after. 
This is important. Almost all the servers in rack don't have keyboard
collected unless we need to login to console.

I couldn't plug in the keyboard then reboot the server to get access to
the 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 10:26 AM
To: Chuck Swiger
Cc: Jessie Xu; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: console no responding to key in.

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:15:24 -0700, Chuck Swiger <cswiger at mac.com>
wrote:
> On Apr 15, 2010, at 1:26 PM, Jessie Xu wrote:
> > I must fix the problem since I need console login with root. Any 
> > insight on this? thanks.  Our machines are Dell PowerEdge 2650 (2U 
> > rack mountable) , come with Video port, PS2 keyboard/Mouse ports, 
> > and two Serial ports. -- I also tried the serial ports for console
access, no lucky.
> 
> PS/2 isn't a hot-pluggable interface.  On older hardware, you can blow

> a fuse on the motherboard by trying to do so while the machine is on, 
> although newer equipment uses a polyfuse (aka PPTC or resettable fuse)

> to avoid permanent damage.

An important advice!



> If there was no keyboard there initially, then the hardware may never 
> attempt to use one added later, short of a power-cycle.

If there was no atkbd: at boot time, attaching it later on will not
introduce it to the system. As you said, Chuck, it may even destroy
hardware to try to do so, leading to the fact that you have a server
with *no* AT keyboard at all. I've already seen that with older systems
not using a resettable fuse.




> In such cases, trying a USB keyboard instead might work better.

Jessie Xu initially said he was on FreeBSD 4. If I remember correctly,
what you suggest isn't possible in the default configuration. Maybe a
USB keyboard will be detected, causing a ukbd: message in the log, but
that's all - no input from it.
You need to type "kbdcontrol -k <device>" to switch over from the
default AT keyboard to the USB keyboard, there's no kbdmux in 4.



As for servers, trying to connect via serial console seems to be the
standard way. Otherwise, attach keyboard and monitor to the system while
the power is off. REALLY OFF (pull mains plug to be really sure - see
PS/2 defect mentioned above).




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