We have been spending time trying to set up a serial connection into our client's Dell PowerEdge server running Solaris 8.
We have exactly the same setup here in our own office as the one we are trying to set up - and the same servers and software. It works here but not on the client's server.
Our problem seems to be with /dev/console itself.
We are using a Cyclades TS100 device to connect into the serial port. When the server is borked, we can telnet to that device for access to the server console on the serial port. If we connect through the TS100 on our local working server, it prompts us with the usual
server console login:
but on the client's machine this never appears.
On both servers,
>echo 'hello' > /dev/term/a
spits out a 'hello' to the TS100 on the serial port of both servers. So the null modem cable and connection settings are OK
However,
>echo 'hello' > /dev/console
only goes through on our (working) server and not on the client's.
On our working machine we cannot add the serial port as an auxiliary console monitor :
>consadm -a /dev/term/a
consadm: /dev/term/a is already the default console
However we can on the problem machine:
>consadm -a /dev/term/a
>echo 'hello' > /dev/console
The 'hello' still does not go through to the serial port. But console messages such as 'su root succeeded' do appear.
The fact that /dev/term/a is not reported as the 'default console' seems to be pretty vital to me. But as far as i can tell the relevant settings on both the working and problem machines are the same.
The bootenv.rc settings (as reported by eeprom) are correct.
...
output-device=com1
input-device=com1
...
ttya-rts-dtr-off=false
ttya-ignore-cd=true
ttya-mode=9600,8,n,1,-
This has also been tried with 'com1' replaced by 'ttya' but no difference.
The /etc/inittab on both machines includes
co:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` console login: " -T sun -d /dev/console -l console -m ldterm,ttcompat
which shows up on ps -ef on both machines as
root 7876 1 0 13:51:58 console 0:00 /usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p www console login: -T sun -d /dev/console -l cons
Because of this problem, we have not patched the client's server for about a year - if the server did not start up correctly, we would have no access to it for troubleshooting. We have speculated a patch might fix it - http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-25-71023-1 describes a very similar problem with a patch we are yet to apply, but we have confirmed it is not our particular issue. (since the process appears correctly in the list.)
Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.