From owner-freebsd-current Thu Feb 6 13: 1:45 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 898F737B40B; Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:01:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from carver.gumbysoft.com (carver.gumbysoft.com [66.220.23.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 30F7343F3F; Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:01:38 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gumbysoft.com) Received: by carver.gumbysoft.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id E474B72E7A; Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:01:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by carver.gumbysoft.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E325E72E74; Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:01:37 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:01:37 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White To: Terry Lambert Cc: Lucky Green , , Subject: Re: L440gx+ serial BIOS needs text mode In-Reply-To: <3E3ED594.EC05289B@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <20030206125158.D60537-100000@carver.gumbysoft.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Terry Lambert wrote: > Lucky Green wrote: > > However, the Intel L440gx+ motherboard I have (it came in a VA Linux > > rackmount) seems to have a separate CPU performing all kinds of > > monitoring tasks, watchdog, etc, so I was hoping this separate CPU was > > actually performing the serial console task. > > According to Doug's Intel page: > > http://people.freebsd.org/~dwhite/ipmi/setup_intel_scb2.html > > It's possible that it is, and that what's happening is some probe > is writing to the port address on the I/O bus, causing the problem. > If this is the case, then the only way to deal with it is to write > a real driver for the thing (not the user space driver), and have > the kernel claim it early, which would (should) keep other drivers > from trying to poke it in the eye to see if their own hardware is > there. That'd be nice if the L440GX+ was IPMI compliant. It isn't. :-) You're better off trying to use the intpm driver to talk to the old-style monitoring chips. Several IPMI features came from features implemented on the BMC on the L440GX, but it still uses the proprietary smbus interface. I never fiddled with the BMC features of the L440GX board. Linux's monitoring driver does talk to it though, you might be able to port it over. On the current generation Intel boards, serial redirection is handled by the BIOS. Once the kernel starts and the kernel takes over output, that redirection ceases to function. By that point, though, you have the usual FreeBSD serial console facilities and thus have a smooth transition. I suspect the same applies for any other Intel motherboard that supports serial redirection. You can confirm support for serial redirection by downloading the Technical Product Specifications for the Intel board you're interested in through support.intel.com. We have Tyan boards at my current employer with serial redirection and they work the same way. -- Doug White | FreeBSD: The Power to Serve dwhite@gumbysoft.com | www.FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message