Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 21:25:19 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michael C. Newell" <mnewell@lupine.nsi.nasa.gov> To: Joe McGuckin <joe@via.net> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Headless/keyboardless booting... Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950724211951.22605A-100000@lupine.nsi.nasa.gov> In-Reply-To: <199507240710.AAA04047@mustang.via.net>
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On Mon, 24 Jul 1995, Joe McGuckin wrote:
> Can freebsd boot without a keyboard or video card? Can a
> serial port be configured as the console port for diagnostic
> and boot messages? I'd like to put a 486 in a closet & not
> waste a keyboard and video card/monitor. I'd like the option
> of plugging in a noteboot to the serial port if it ever developed
> problems that couldn't be fixed over a telnet connection.
>
> I'm looking for similar functionality that I get with a headless
> Sun workstation.
The answer is: sort of. :-)
Generally, especially older PCs required a keyboard. Some clever person
decided it made sense to issue errors like:
keyboard error
Press <F1> to continue.
which makes a lot of sense if you don't have a keyboard in the first
place. Anyway, most newer BIOSen allow you to disable the keyboard
missing error; on my AMI bios I set the "Keyboard not installed" flag.
This is a misleading flag, since if I set it and a keyboard IS present it
works fine...
I've not seen ANY PC that will boot without a video card of some sort;
they always fail in POST. What we did was get an ancient CGA card from a
junk box at a HAM fest for $1 and stuff that in. It's enough to get past
POST.
To get a serial port to work as a console port (a la a headless Sun) use
the "options COMCONSOLE" in your kernel build. Check out the FreeBSD Web
pages ("http://www.freebsd.org"); there's a page that explains how to do
this in detail.
Hope this helps!!
Mike
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|Mike Newell | The opinions expressed herein are |
|NASA Science Internet Network Systems | my own, and do not necessarily |
|Sterling Software, Inc. | reflect those of the NSI program, |
|MNewell@nsipo.nasa.gov | Sterling Software, NASA, or anyone |
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