No Serial Console Menu

Perry

@http://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/214:

On the full installs I've tested I need to change dailup to cons25 in /etc/ttys

jimp

I suppose whether or not these were fresh installs or upgrades from 1.2.3 might make a difference.

I never had to do anything manually on this VM, it's always Just Worked(TM).

erisan500

Well, this is a clean install and upgraded to latest snapshot. I tried disable serial console, reboot, enable serial console, reboot, but still nothing. After the message "Bootup Complete" it's dead silence, no console menu is shown.

jimp

what does your /etc/ttys file look like on the line for ttyu0

erisan500

console "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure

#ttyv0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure

jimp

neither of which is ttyu0… :)

erisan500

so i have to change it to ttyu0 and uncomment that line ?

jimp

No, you need both of those lines, but there should be a whole set of ttyu <x>lines in there too.

I have this under the ttyv <x>part:

# Serial terminals
# The 'dialup' keyword identifies dialin lines to login, fingerd etc.
ttyu0   "/usr/libexec/getty bootupcli"  cons25  off     secure
ttyu1   "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"   dialup  off secure
ttyu2   "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"   dialup  off secure
ttyu3   "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"   dialup  off secure
```</x></x>

erisan500

I added those and still nothing :-\

Micro

Hi all pfsensors,
I'm facing the same issue as you on my pfsense.
My pfsense box which is a watchguard Firebox X700 is actually running the embedded pfsense v1.2.3.
With this release of pfsense, serial console is working perfectly.

I would like to migrate to pfsense 2.0 RC1 and the serial console menu is not displayed.
In the Web GUI, the serial interface is checked but nothing after "Bootup Complete" message.

I'm running the Embedded kernel version in order to redirect the console output on serial interface and the ttys config file is all commented after install.
So I modified the file to make the following line active (removed the sharp at the beginning of the line):
ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty PC" cons25 on secure

Unfortunately, serial console still doesn't display the menu :'(

SSH menu is working well but in case of mistake in configuration, the serial link is the best way to get back control on the system so I would like this link to work.

If anybody has an idea to make it work, it would be nice.

Thanks for your help.

jonallport

Bump!

ramaza

I have the same problem on my Firebox X700 and pfSense 2.0 RC3. I am unable to activate the serial console through webinterface or by using ssh and editing /etc/ttys.

Boot messages are shown on serial console so cabling and everything else should be ok.

Regards,
Franz

stephenw10

Is your box an upgrade or fresh install of 2.0?
I don't really see why that make any difference but it seems to.

Steve

ramaza

Its a fresh install of 2.0 RC3 on a 60Gigabyte Harddisk. The harddisk was moved to Firebox after initial installation and /etc/fstab had to be modified to allow normal boot without user interaction. Seems to be a well known and necessary procedure for Firebox.

At first I tried the "enable serial console" option in the webinterface and rebootet. But except from the usual boot messages there was no reaction at the serial console. Afterwards I tried to modify /etc/ttys without any success.

adjuster

I was also facing this issue on my Firebox X500. I simply solved this by invoking /etc/rc.initial by adding it to /etc/rc just before exit 0 at the end. Seems to be working just fine, except if I hit enter or ctrl-C in the menu. Then the behaviour isn't perhaps what it should be: /etc/rc get run again and at least web configurator dies.

stephenw10

Hmm, interesting. This issue is going to become a problem for all X-core users when 2.0 is released.

Steve

Edit: Is anyone in this thread not using a Watchguard Firebox?
Seems very strange. It would appear that it's not a case of the console being sent somewhere other than the serial port but rather the script that displays the menu and subsequent actions is not being called.
Presumably something hardware related is stalling the script before it can run. Where is rc.initial called from?

dfwbt

Ok,

Using the info found in here, and an old x500 laying around my house, I have come up with this "Band Aid" solution….

ssh into your pfSense equipped firebox, get to a command prompt, and issue the following commands -

mount -u -w /
cd /usr/local/share/misc
pkg_add -r wget
wget http://www.cps-texas.com/serialbandaid.sh
pkg_add -r nano
nano -w /etc/rc

(At this point you will be in the nano text editor.....)

Add the following lines just BEFORE exit 0 at the end of the file -

--- COPY BELOW ---

Firebox serial console "Band-Aid" Loop Fix

/usr/local/share/misc/serialbandaid.sh

--- END COPY ---

Hit Ctrl-X, y to save, and you're done.....

reboot your firebox, and VIOLA!! you now should have a functional serial console menu, complete with trapping CTRL-C, Enter, etc....

-Andy

Andrew Miffleton
Voice Network Technician
DFW Business Telephones, Inc.
1260 Shiloh Rd.
Plano, Texas 75074
(972)424-4242 x455
http://www.dfwbt.com

stephenw10

Nice. :)
After looking through the many startup scripts I'm still none the wiser about where or how the rc.initial script is intended to run. Neither can I see what makes the X-core so 'special'. The serial console works just fine on other Watchguard hardware.

You can use fetch instead of wget and ee instead of nano, both are included in pfSense.

This is a good workaround though, thanks.

Steve

adjuster

@dfwbt:

Ok,

Using the info found in here, and an old x500 laying around my house, I have come up with this "Band Aid" solution….

...

wget http://www.cps-texas.com/serialbandaid.sh

Great! Thanks a lot!