Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:22:52 +1030 From: "Daniel O'Connor" <doconnor@gsoft.com.au> To: Jeremy Chadwick <jdc@koitsu.org> Cc: Konstantin Belousov <kostikbel@gmail.com>, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, Navdeep Parhar <nparhar@gmail.com>, John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: IPMI serial console Message-ID: <9F6E4B36-0C89-4409-91FB-08CC90848D23@gsoft.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20130222013258.GA93350@icarus.home.lan> References: <00CC60B5-A6EB-4A3C-B8AC-1D60014DE442@gsoft.com.au> <201302211049.13863.jhb@freebsd.org> <E44ABF7A-3795-471B-B241-7103ECE2119E@gsoft.com.au> <51269ABD.2040308@gmail.com> <2AF6F8E4-A45E-4D4C-9232-FF09AD4A3641@gsoft.com.au> <5126A3A1.1030208@gmail.com> <64293C7A-038A-4EA1-B394-9E80CFCBC14F@gsoft.com.au> <20130221230001.GF2598@kib.kiev.ua> <20130221232929.GA91708@icarus.home.lan> <3FE71C9F-29B2-48F5-9A51-D312B1803E14@gsoft.com.au> <20130222013258.GA93350@icarus.home.lan>
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On 22/02/2013, at 12:02, Jeremy Chadwick <jdc@koitsu.org> wrote: >> Hmm I tried putting '-S 115200' in /boot.config and it broke - the = boot process didn't run the loader (or kernel). >=20 > I'll talk a bit about this -- again, sorry for the verbosity. I'll > explain what I've historically used/done, then speculate a bit about > your IPMI stuff: >=20 > For me, on systems without IPMI, all I had to do was this (and nothing > else): >=20 > * Put the following in /boot.config: >=20 > -S115200 -Dh This breaks the boot for me, boot.config has to contain more than just = flags it seems. In any case I believe setting boot_multicons and = boot_serial is the same as -Dh. Not sure about the baud rate though. <snip> > situation may be different because you have 3 serial ports (2 > classic DB9 ports or headers, and one "fake" via IPMI), so you may = need > to rely entirely on /boot/loader.conf to accomplish use of the IPMI = one, > unless you wanted to set BOOT_COMCONSOLE_PORT. OK, I made some more progress, I rebuilt the /usr/src/sys/boot with = BOOT_COMCONSOLE_SPEED=3D115200 BOOT_COMCONSOLE_PORT=3D0x3e8 and now the = loader talks to me without VGA to serial redirection. > Possibly the reason you see via the IPMI serial port at this stage is > because IPMI also does VGA-to-IPMI output, so what you're seeing on = the > IPMI serial port is actually from the VGA console (speculation on my > part). Yes this was the case until just now. > Debugging all of this is as you know a PITA because of where during = the > whole startup process it lies. IPMI just makes this whole thing an = even > bigger mess because it ties itself in to bits/pieces along the way, > which a kernel (or even a bootloader, depending on what it touches and > how), can mess up. This is why I've always stuck with the classic DB9 > serial ports on the backplane; I know how to get FreeBSD to behave = right > with those, everything else is voodoo. :-) Yep, it's all kludges bolted on top of hacks. > Part of me wonders if it's possible to disable, say, COM1 in the BIOS, > then in the IPMI firmware tell it to user a serial I/O port of 0x3f8, > IRQ 4 (i.e. COM1) and see if that works with the method I describe > above. I don't have much familiarity with IPMI by choice, solely > because of situations exactly like what you're going through. I have > the same opinion of those damn NIC ASF things (see bge(4)) -- which is Yeah I may look at that if I can't proceed any further. > exactly why many motherboard vendors that do IPMI now offer a > *physically separate NIC/RJ45 port* for it, rather than = "piggybacking": > the latter caused so much pain/anger that it wasn't worth it. I assumed that the separate NIC was to avoid this problem, however I = have since found that the default on the SM boards I looked at is to use = the dedicated port otherwise share(!). So the worst of both worlds, = hooray! -- Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum GPG Fingerprint - 5596 B766 97C0 0E94 4347 295E E593 DC20 7B3F CE8C
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