Booting from install ISO CD on a Sun SPARC E250 with a "Remote System Console" card gives the following: boot: gentoo-2.4-smp Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel Loaded kernel version 2.4.25 Loading initial ramdisk (943625 bytes at 0x40C00000)... / Inconsistent console: input 3, output 3 Program terminated {0} ok a "printenv" from the Ok prompt shows the following: {0} ok printenv Variable Name Value Default Value tpe-link-test? true true scsi-initiator-id 7 7 keyboard-click? false false keymap ttyb-rts-dtr-off false false ttyb-ignore-cd true true ttya-rts-dtr-off false false ttya-ignore-cd true true ttyb-mode 9600,8,n,1,- 9600,8,n,1,- ttya-mode 9600,8,n,1,- 9600,8,n,1,- pci-slot-skip-list none none pci0-probe-list 1,3,2,4,5 1,3,2,4,5 upa-port-skip-list none none diag-level min min diag-script normal normal diag-targets none none diag-trigger power-reset power-reset diag-continue? false false diag-passes 1 1 diag-verbosity tests tests env-monitor enabled enabled mfg-options server #power-cycles 35 system-board-serial# 5014681045098 system-board-date 3773ee17 fcode-debug? false false output-device rsc screen input-device rsc keyboard load-base 16384 16384 boot-command boot boot auto-boot? true true auto-boot-on-error? false false watchdog-reboot? false false diag-file diag-device net net boot-file boot-device disk net disk net local-mac-address? true false ansi-terminal? true true screen-#columns 80 80 screen-#rows 34 34 silent-mode? false false use-nvramrc? false false nvramrc devalias vx-rootdisk /pc ... security-mode none security-password security-#badlogins 0 oem-logo oem-logo? false false oem-banner oem-banner? false false hardware-revision last-hardware-update diag-switch? false false Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. "boot cdrom" at the Sun's Ok prompt 2. "boot gentoo-2.4" or "boot gentoo-2.4-smp" at the boot prompt 3. Error message shown in "details" section of this report follows every time. Actual Results: boot: gentoo-2.4-smp Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel Loaded kernel version 2.4.25 Loading initial ramdisk (943625 bytes at 0x40C00000)... / Inconsistent console: input 3, output 3 Program terminated {0} ok Expected Results: Boot using Remote System Console as tty i/o device (identical to using ttya or ttyb as the input/output console). n/a
Appears that this can be worked-around by using boot: gentoo-2.4-smp console=ttyb however the kernel should likely support the RSC, as they are quite common.
My bad: apparently the RSC does not redirect ttyb.... boot: gentoo-2.4-smp console=ttyb Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel Loaded kernel version 2.4.25 Loading initial ramdisk (943625 bytes at 0x40C00000)... | Using /dev/ttyb as console. Remapping the kernel... done. Booting Linux... Starting CPU 1... OK [ system console becomes unresponsive at this point ] Appears that openprom.h needs #define PROMDEV_RSC 3 /* in/out to Remote System Console */ at approx line 206. and console.c needs to use PROMDEV_RSC at/near line 120 in prom_query_input_device() and line 172 for prom_query_output_device() and routine "paging_init()" in setup.c in the switch statement near line 526 needs to recognize PROMDEV_RSC as a valid return value. Perhaps modify the case-statement to have a case4 for forcing RSC as the console? [also in boot_flags_init() in setup.c] I suspect treating the RSC the same as ttyb in sunserial.c might be OK in sunserial_console_termios(). Am not sure where else the RSC would need to be addressed....
ttya/b don't get mapped to the same device names in linux, they usually get mapped as ttyS0 and ttyS0 respectively. Please try the 2004.2 cd since 2004.1 had some bootloader (silo) issues that may be the cause of your problem. Also, i'm not sure you can use the serial port on the RSC as console in linux, squash: can you give more insight into this? In any case the livecd tries to pull up a console on serial port A (ttya / ttyS0).
I have not tried the RSC port on my E250s yet, but I will try to put one together tomorrow afternoon and will report back with results.
Did you have any luck getting console output to the RSC on ur E250's?
As far as we found out using the RSC in linux requires information currently not available from sun. Even if this information were available, it would require kernel coding/patching which really isn't that tempting considering the RSC only works in the E250 model. Sorry.