Re: USB-serial adapter suggestions needed

On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 09:41:06AM +0000, Marcin Cieslak wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Dec 2023, bob prohaska wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 07:05:32PM +0000, Marcin Cieslak wrote:
> > > are you running with the default /etc/ttys ?
> > > 
> > Yes, I am.
> > 
> > > If yes,
> > > 
> > > can you please edit /etc/ttys on the serial port
> > > side as follows (as root)
> > > 
> > > # ed /etc/ttys 2216
> > > /ttyu0
> > > ttyu0	"/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"	vt100	onifconsole secure
> > > .s/3wire/3wire.9600/
> > > .
> > > ttyu0	"/usr/libexec/getty 3wire.9600"	vt100	onifconsole secure
> > > w
> > > q
> > 
> > Couple of questions:
> > 
> > Is it necessary to use ed? I'm less bad with vi 8-)
> > 
> > Should I plan to change tip settings once FreeBSD boots?
> 
> /ttyu0
> .s/3wire/3wire.9600/
> .
> w
> q
> 
> are the commands you need to enter.
> 
> Please also adjust tip(1) line speed to 9600.

It's been discovered that turning off powerd on both the terminal
server host and the console host  seems to eliminate the disconnect 
problem entirely. The necessity of eliminating powerd on the terminal
server is uncertain, I did it in the spirit of thoroughness.

With powerd off, the host www.zefox.org ran a complete buildworld, 
buildkernel, installworld, installkernel and poudriere jail update
over about five days without a single loss of communication from
workstation to serial console via the terminal server pelorus and 
usb-serial adapter. The serial connection was initiated at 115200
baud and remained clean the entire time.  

On www.zefox.org /etc/ttys still contains
ttyu0   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
ttyu1   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
ttyu2   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
ttyu3   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
Config.txt contains dtoverlay=disable-bt and uname -a now reports
FreeBSD www.zefox.org 15.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 15.0-CURRENT #104 main-n267335-499e84e16f56: Thu Jan  4 16:42:10 PST 2024     bob@www.zefox.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/arm64.aarch64/sys/GENERIC arm64

On the terminal server pelorus /etc/remote contains
ucom:dv=/dev/cuaU0:br#115200:pa=none:
and the command
tip ucom 
was used to initiate the connection. Uname -a reports
FreeBSD pelorus 14.0-RELEASE-p4 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p4 #0 releng/14.0-n265400-4edf3b80733e: Wed Dec 27 20:21:26 PST 2023     bob@pelorus:/usr/obj/usr/src/arm64.aarch64/sys/GENERIC arm64
 
To all appearances, the troublemaker is powerd. The question is 
what to try next. A very simple experiment is to start powerd on
www.zefox.org and repeat the build/install cycle. Alternatively,
I could try the experiment you suggested, setting ttyu0 to 9600
baud. Or, I could do both at the same time. Or, something else.

Please let me know what would be most informative. It would be 
very desirable to use powerd, as it substantially improves 
performance. 

Thanks for your help!

bob prohaska