No serial console input in loader

[Anselm Strauss]

Hi,

I have to come back to this problem. When I boot over the serial  
console, input works all fine until I come to the loader menu. There,  
input from the serial console is just ignored, I can not interrupt the  
autoboot and e.g. choose a different kernel. I have partitioned with  
GPT and installed /boot/pmbr into the MBR and /boot/gptboot into the  
first partition of type freebsd-boot. The keyboard works in the BIOS,  
and in gptboot I think, where I can interrupt the boot by pressing a  
key, and a list like this shows:

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0p2)/boot/loader
boot:

Then, in the loader menu the input is dead, when the kernel boots and  
also afterwards it works again fine.

When I use GRUB to start the loader the keyboard also works.

Any ideas on what the problem could be or how to track this down?

Cheers
Anselm


> On Jun 28, 2008, at 13:15 , Anselm Strauss wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have a small router that has no video output, it only supports a
>> serial console. I configured the serial console in /boot/
>> boot.config, /boot/loader.conf and /etc/ttys. It's working in the
>> BIOS, on the boot prompt before the loader starts, and when logging
>> in on the getty. The only place where it's not working correctly is
>> at the loader prompt. I can see the loader menu and the logo, but I
>> can't choose the boot entry or interrupt the timeout. I can't make
>> any input at all. What could this be?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Anselm
>>
> Don't know what this was, but now it works. I use Grub to directly
> load /boot/loader as kernel. I set the serial console in the BIOS to
> 115200 Baud. In Grub's menu.lst I then use:
>
> serial --unit=0 --speed=115200
> terminal serial
>
> and in /boot/loader.conf:
>
> console="comconsole"
> comconsole_speed="115200"
>
> Seems like this is all that is needed.
>
> Anselm