From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 29 15:02:02 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2742916A420 for ; Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:02:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ken@allenmyland.com) Received: from rwcrmhc12.comcast.net (rwcrmhc12.comcast.net [216.148.227.152]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C5EB643D46 for ; Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:02:01 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ken@allenmyland.com) Received: from bserver.transpack.com ([68.80.195.248]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc12) with ESMTP id <20060129150201m1200k84qae>; Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:02:01 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost.transpack.com [127.0.0.1]) by bserver.transpack.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97530B822; Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:02:00 -0500 (EST) Received: from bserver.transpack.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (bserver.transpack.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 14845-08; Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:01:58 -0500 (EST) Received: from [192.168.214.102] (kbuilt.transpack.com [192.168.214.102]) by bserver.transpack.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08D50B81F; Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:01:57 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <43DCD8E2.8060303@allenmyland.com> Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:01:54 -0500 From: Ken Stevenson User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (Windows/20051201) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Scott I. Remick" References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at transpack.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: serial console for dummies? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:02:02 -0000 Scott I. Remick wrote: > Hello... I'm trying to set up a serial console for watching console error > messages while in X, but am having a real hard time getting my head around > the concepts of what I need to do (and don't need to). > > I've seen http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/serialconsole-setup.html but > I'm not clear about how much of that applies to what I want to do, since > it talks about setting it up for a headless system (no keyboard or > monitor) and actually instructs you to remove the keyboard. I've also > searched the mailing list archives but I've read a lot of conflicting > info, much of which for different uses of the serial console than what I > want to use it for, and I've now read back so far that I can't even be > certain that the suggestions apply to FreeBSD 6.0. Ugh > > So is there someone who can give me a hand-held walk-through of just what > I need to do to make this work? I'm running FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE and live > in X (Gnome) all the time. My intention here is to be able to see console > messages (Errors) so when something dies (like X locking, which happens > sometimes) I have a chance to see what the heck happened. I have an old > 486 laptop I intend to use as the "dumb terminal", as well as the > necessary null modem cable. I just need to know what to configure on my > FreeBSD box so that console errors are mirrored to the serial port. Thanks! > I was trying to accomplish the same thing a couple weeks ago and somebody recommended the following: touch /var/log/console.log Edit /etc/syslog.conf and uncomment the line that begins with console.info. Reboot (you might be able to just restart syslogd). -- Ken Stevenson Allen-Myland Inc.