Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 10:52:10 +0200 From: Andriy Gapon <avg@freebsd.org> To: Andrew Reilly <areilly@bigpond.net.au> Cc: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Console options for legacy-free mini-itx server? Message-ID: <4CE0F4BA.5050205@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20101115045549.GB96011@johnny.reilly.home> References: <20101115045549.GB96011@johnny.reilly.home>
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on 15/11/2010 06:55 Andrew Reilly said the following: > Hi there, > > I've replaced my old desktop with a laptop and a server, which > is mostly working great. Naturally, the server is running > FreeBSD-stable. It's built on an intel i3 MiniITX motherboard > that has lots of SATA sockets, a respectable number of USB > sockets, gigabit ethernet, eSATA, DVI, ... but no serial ports > or PS/2 keyboard or mouse ports. Most of the time this is fine, > but I've found that sometimes it is very nice to be able to > debug something at a console. Particularly if something goes > wrong when doing an upgrade of some sort. I've discovered that > I can use the old VGA screen and USB keyboard for a console if I > have them plugged in at boot time, but if something goes wrong > after boot, plugging a keyboard in doesn't seem to help. > > If I find a USB-to-RS232 dongle, will the console mechanism be > able to find it? I worry that only legacy-16550-ish serial > ports need apply. > > Any other possibilities or common practices? Is there a firewire port? > Oh: the other thing about this system: I can't warm-start > it, have to power down and then manually hit the power-on > button. Attempting to reboot leaves the console sitting at > something like "Stopping other CPUs" forever. I assume that > this is a BIOS config problem, but haven't found the right > control knob yet. I've tried turning hyperthreading on and off: > no difference. Reading the kernel code around that message > suggests that rebooting involves getting the keyboard controller > to send an NMI, and I wonder if the legacy-free no-keyboard > state of my system is having an effect on that, too? -- Andriy Gapon
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