Console Redirection After Boot

Thu Nov 2 10:50:41 CST 2006

So is Dell's official stance to use a combination of hardware and
software redirection?

I mean...what are the chances of Dell actually doing proper VGA->RS232
emulation on a dedicated serial port not visible to the OS?  

Much like the original PCI Weasel did.  Then one wouldn't have to worry
about whether the Kernel uses BIOS calls or an internal frame-buffer to
write to the screen.

I mean, if the virtual "Com2" device on that is virtually mapped into
the Com port on the DRAC, then I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Dell really should revisit PC Weasel.

It would be nice to think x86 has caught up over the last 15
years.                                        

Anyway, for the
record:                                                                                    

The old PC Weasel Console
Redirection:                                                                     

Phoenix
BIOS:                                                                                              
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=23                                     

NetBSD 2.0
Sysinst:                                                                                        
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=24                                     

Bios
Summary:                                                                                              
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=22                                     

---                                                                                                        

Dell PE750 Console
Redirection:                                                                            
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=21                                     

Compare where DRAC VNC (IE6 only) VGA redirected console
output                                            
continues and the DRAC5 virtual "COM2" serial redirection
halts:                                           

http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=27                                     
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=25                                     
vs.:                                                                                                       
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=29                                     

Dell PE2950 Settings (BIOS nicely drawn via
Serial/ANSI):                                                  
http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=28 

~BAS

On Wed, 2006-11-01 at 08:20 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2006, Brian A. Seklecki wrote:
> 
> > All:
> >
> > What's the deal with this feature?  Was it intended to be used for any
> > relatively modern OS?
> >
> > It seems to work with DOS and Memtest86+, and perhaps then even some of
> > the bootable FreeDOS based utils available from Dell.
> >
> > But forget about using it for anything that "does not use the BIOS for
> > console I/O."
> >
> > All the Dell Linux docs I find suggest not using it; use the DRAC
> > VGA->VNC feature instead,  but Dell really bungled that with the new
> > DRAC5 and the ActiveX dependency (imagine that, an embedded Linux device
> > that serves an ActiveX applet -- the irony is painful)
> 
> I can't answer your question about using BIOS for console IO, so this may
> not help, but I do use "console over serial" in many (remote) Linux
> installations I have (None Dell, but I see no reason why it won't work in
> a Dell). You can make lilo use the serial line (and I'm sure grub too),
> and it's a compile & command-line feature for the linux kernel (but I'd be
> surprised it if wasn't included in the standard Dell/RH kernels, and you
> just needed to activate it somehow - eg. in the grub config file)
> 
> In lilo.conf it's as simple as putting:
> 
>   serial=0,57600n8
> 
> in it somewhere, and to make linux use it, you need something like:
> 
>   append="console=ttyS0,57600n8"
> 
> in the same file. I'm sure grub does it in a similar fashion, but I don't
> use grub so can't comment there. I do it this way on another vendors mobos
> which have a BIOS over serial switch, so if required I can connect to a
> servers serial line (cisco terminal concentrator thingy) power cycle it,
> and from then on, do bios "stuff", then boot lilo and do lilo poking, then
> into linux (with extra command-line "stuff", if required, and it all "just
> works".
> 
> There is also a comple-time version of memtest to make it work over a
> serial-line too (rather than rely on the console redirection, I guess)
> I've used this too (but also have the non-serial line version of
> memtest86+ installed too!)
> 
> Gordon
-- 
Brian A. Seklecki <bseklecki at collaborativefusion.com>
Collaborative Fusion, Inc.