Re: Stop console going blank (if it is)

On 2024-10-02 12:33, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> Frank Leonhardt <freebsd-doc@fjl.co.uk> writes:
>> I've just asked someone to plug in a monitor and send me a photo of
>> the screen. "It's blank".
> 
> By default FreeBSD blanks the console after 300 seconds of inactivity.
> You can disable this by adding `blanktime="NO"` to /etc/rc.conf or
> /etc/rc.conf.d/syscons.  If you can log into the machine remotely, you
> can unblank it by typing `vidcontrol -t off </dev/ttyv0` in a root 
> shell
> (sudo won't work because you'd still be trying to open /dev/ttyv0 as
> yourself before passing it to sudo).  Or ask the person who plugged in
> the monitor to also plug in a keyboard and press any key, preferably
> Shift or Ctrl as that won't actually do anything other than unblank.  
> If
> it doesn't react to Shift or Ctrl then pressing Caps Lock or Num Lock
> and checking if the corresponding LED lights up will let you know if at

Thanks! Just what I needed. Alas, no keyboard possible here and no 
remote login possible as the host is crashing after a kernel panic OR 
SOMETHING. It's hard to tell when the screen is blank.