docs/95408: install over serial console does not work as documented

[John Baldwin]

On Thursday 06 April 2006 12:11, Harti Brandt wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, John Baldwin wrote:
> 
> JB>On Thursday 06 April 2006 08:29, Harti Brandt wrote:
> JB>> 
> JB>> >Number:         95408
> JB>> >Category:       docs
> JB>> >Synopsis:       install over serial console does not work as documented
> JB>> >Confidential:   no
> JB>> >Severity:       serious
> JB>> >Priority:       low
> JB>> >Responsible:    freebsd-doc
> JB>> >State:          open
> JB>> >Quarter:        
> JB>> >Keywords:       
> JB>> >Date-Required:
> JB>> >Class:          doc-bug
> JB>> >Submitter-Id:   current-users
> JB>> >Arrival-Date:   Thu Apr 06 12:30:20 GMT 2006
> JB>> >Closed-Date:
> JB>> >Last-Modified:
> JB>> >Originator:     Harti Brandt
> JB>> >Release:        6.1-beta4
> JB>> >Organization:
> JB>> DLR
> JB>> >Environment:
> JB>> >Description:
> JB>> The installation document describes a procedure to install on i386 over a 
> JB>> serial console. It recommends to either unplug the keyboard or to interrupt the boot and boot with boot -h.
> JB>> 
> JB>> Boot -h turns out not to work. While all the kernel messages from the probing
> JB>> appear on both the normal console and the serial one, after mounting the root
> JB>> file system the system switches entirely to the normal console.
> JB>> 
> JB>> Instead the following procedure will do it (but require at least a keyboard on the machine in question):
> JB>> 
> JB>> - interrupt the boot in the boot menu by pressing 6
> JB>> - enter the following lines:
> JB>> 
> JB>> set boot_multicons="YES"
> JB>> set boot_serial="YES"
> JB>> set console="comconsole"
> JB>> boot
> JB>
> JB>Are you doing 'boot -h' at the loader prompt?  I think all you need to do is
> JB>break into the loader and do:
> JB>
> JB>set console="comconsole vidconsole"
> 
> As I said I did what the documentation says: press 6 when the menu appears 
> and then say boot -h. This should be the load prompt, I think?
> 
> If one is supposed to use the 'set console' instead of boot -h we should 
> just fix the documentation.

Ah.  boot -Dh from the boot2 prompt should work fine.  At the loader it would
probably be best to just do 'set console="comconsole vidconsole"' if you still
want the dual consoles up until single user mode.  Otherwise, if you just want
the serial console, 'set console="comconsole"' is probably best.

-- 
John Baldwin <jhb at FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve"  =  http://www.FreeBSD.org