From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 25 17:27:26 2005 Return-Path: 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 DA51B16A4D0 for ; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:27:26 +0000 (GMT) Received: from sb.santaba.com (sb.santaba.com [207.154.84.26]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A84AB43D1F for ; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:27:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jbehl@fastclick.com) Received: from [192.168.3.100] (unknown [205.180.85.193]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by sb.santaba.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 606BF2848C; Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:27:26 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <426D28DB.70600@fastclick.com> Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:28:59 -0700 From: Jeff Behl User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eric Anderson References: <426CFA51.3060003@centtech.com> In-Reply-To: <426CFA51.3060003@centtech.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.91.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: serial/ether console & ramblings X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:27:27 -0000 Eric Anderson wrote: > Danny Braniss wrote: > >> hi, >> I was about to plunge in and 'try' to cleanup the serial console >> stuff, when it downed on me that newer machines are arriving without >> serial >> port! there goes that idea. So USB/serial dongle came to mind, might >> work, but messy, FireWire is not universaly available. >> So, why not serial over ethernet? IPMI 'was' to have solved >> this, but it will (if at all) work on server class MB only, and im still >> looking for a Unix Viewer. >> >> In my case, i have been using the serial console to debug stuff, but >> being of the old school, i try to stay away from debuggers :-), so >> printf and stack trace will do. >> >> So here are some of my quesions: >> o - is there some standard? ok, refrase, are there some >> standards? >> o - any WIP?, i'm checking out Robert Watson's ethercons >> o - any great ideas? > > > There are a couple of ports that seem to try to use IPMI. I haven't > tried them yet though. (sysutils/freeipmi and sysutils/ipmitool). > > I can tell you that being about to do serial over ethernet (and > possibly power cycling) would be incredibly handy. > > Eric > > > NIC drivers have to be made aware of IPMI in order for it to function when a shared NIC is used. This is not the case with the bge driver, at the very least. See: http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/htdig/freebsd-net/2005-March/thread.html#6725 This is also a very big issue for us and we're considering hiring a contractor to get the relevant parts put into the driver...