[lug] Help using Serial Console

[steve at badcheese.com]

I usually just append "console=ttyS0,115200" to the kernel line and my 
normal console hits the serial port instead.  Works pretty well for me. 
Quick and dirty solution.  Also, allows for monitoring the box during 
boot.  The getty solution won't spit out any text until your init level 
changes to > 1.

- Steve

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007, George Sexton wrote:

> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:17:55 -0600
> From: George Sexton <gsexton at mhsoftware.com>
> Reply-To: "Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List"
>     <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>
> To: "Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List"
>     <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>
> Subject: [lug] Help using Serial Console
> 
> I'm having some problems using a serial console, and wondered if anyone could 
> give me some pointers. I've looked through the various HOWTO documents for 
> serial consoles, and text consoles and I'm just not seeing what I need.
>
> I've got 3 computers, and a router in a co-location facility, and I want to 
> use the console server so I can do things like an fsck remotely. I've got an 
> Avocent CPS1610 Console server connected to a machine running SUSE 10.2. I 
> can see the machine POST, access setup, etc. I've got grub working on the 
> serial port, and I can see the the serial console during machine boot.
>
> I can also login using the serial port console. My "agetty" line from inittab 
> is:
>
> S0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -h -L 38400 ttyS0 xterm
>
> I'm using OpenSSH from another SUSE Linux 10.2 box to log in. $TERM on the 
> client shows "xterm".
>
> The problem I'm having is that the terminal behavior is erratic. I've tried 
> specifying vt102, (nothing), and xterm on the agetty line. So far, xterm 
> works the best but it still has problems. Some issues are:
>
> 1) # Columns seems fixed at 80, and not the width of the console window.
> 2) If I pull up VI, and the editor only gives me 24 lines of display. When I 
> exit VI, and run a command that generates output, the lines of data scroll 
> through the bottom ONE line of the console, rather than the whole console 
> being refreshed as lines of data are scrolled up. Other programs like man, 
> mc, and yast cause the same issue.
>
> If I run "reset" after this problem, things are set back to more or less 
> normal.
>
> I'm using Konsole, but I've tried xterm as well. If I use putty, then I don't 
> have to run RESET after using mc, man, etc, but they still only display in 
> 80*24.
>
> I've had pretty much the same kinds of issues using MINICOM as well. With 
> minicom, or ssh and VT102, the terminal is limited to 80*24 unless I resize 
> the window. If I resize the window, then the number of lines is used. "reset" 
> has no effect with minicom.
>
> If anyone could give me some tips on improving this, I would REALLY 
> appreciate it.
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
EMAIL: (h) steve at badcheese.com  WEB: http://badcheese.com/~steve