Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 18:47:28 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> To: Jamie Ostrowski <jamie@getsetnet.net> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Problem with keyboard on FreeBSD Message-ID: <20020314183808.I34354-100000@catalyst.sasknow.net> In-Reply-To: <20020314115743.N28153-100000@floyd.getsetnet.net>
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Jamie Ostrowski wrote to freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG: > Hi, > > I am running FreeBSD 4.5 RELEASE on an x86 hardware based server. If > the keyboard happens to come unplugged, upon plugging it back in there is > no response from the system. I have to reboot for the keyboard to start > working again. This is normal, and non-OS specific. PS/2 or DIN-5 connections are not hot-pluggable. You might get lucky, and, then again, you might have to restart your machine. I've even heard tell of cooked keyboard interfaces and the like. You say this was accidental, but you might benefit from some general advice I can give you, should you ever need to accidentally unplug your keyboard in the future: o Don't do that o Invest in a high quality KVM switch o Do not use a keyboard; do everything remotely via SSH (or telnet, on a secure connection). o Try a USB keyboard (someone else suggested this, I think.. I have no experience with USB keyboards in FreeBSD :-) USB is designed to be hot-pluggable. Make sure usbd is running. One last idea that I have used on occasion: Make some "key floppies" that basically contain a flag file that will cause your server to execute a predetermined list of instructions. Set up a cron job that, every few minutes, mounts the disk and checks for the existence of your flag files. You can trivially set this up to cleanly reboot the system, restart daemons, etc. This is only a good idea in a secure environment. Also, keep the programming logic on the server... NEVER run arbitrary shell code as root from a floppy. :-) > The problem is that I have to shut the machine down hard in order to > do this, since the keyboard is unresponsive. Obviously the disks > complain when I bring the machine up again, and this is a production > server. If a keyboard accidentaly comes unplugged, is there anything > you can do to get the system to interact with it rather than > powering down and restarting? Not that I know of. - Ryan -- Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> Network Administrator, Accounts SaskNow Technologies - http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E - Saskatoon, SK - S7H 0W2 Tel: 306-664-3600 Fax: 306-664-1161 Saskatoon Toll-Free: 877-727-5669 (877-SASKNOW) North America To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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