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Date:      Thu, 6 Feb 2003 13:01:37 -0800 (PST)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@gumbysoft.com>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
Cc:        Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>, <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>, <dwhite@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: L440gx+ serial BIOS needs text mode
Message-ID:  <20030206125158.D60537-100000@carver.gumbysoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <3E3ED594.EC05289B@mindspring.com>

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On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Terry Lambert wrote:

> Lucky Green wrote:
> > However, the Intel L440gx+ motherboard I have (it came in a VA Linux
> > rackmount) seems to have a separate CPU performing all kinds of
> > monitoring tasks, watchdog, etc, so I was hoping this separate CPU was
> > actually performing the serial console task.
>
> According to Doug's Intel page:
>
> 	http://people.freebsd.org/~dwhite/ipmi/setup_intel_scb2.html
>
> It's possible that it is, and that what's happening is some probe
> is writing to the port address on the I/O bus, causing the problem.
> If this is the case, then the only way to deal with it is to write
> a real driver for the thing (not the user space driver), and have
> the kernel claim it early, which would (should) keep other drivers
> from trying to poke it in the eye to see if their own hardware is
> there.

That'd be nice if the L440GX+ was IPMI compliant. It isn't. :-)  You're
better off trying to use the intpm driver to talk to the old-style
monitoring chips.  Several IPMI features came from features implemented on
the BMC on the L440GX, but it still uses the proprietary smbus interface.
I never fiddled with the BMC features of the L440GX board. Linux's
monitoring driver does talk to it though, you might be able to port it
over.

On the current generation Intel boards, serial redirection is handled by
the BIOS. Once the kernel starts and the kernel takes over output, that
redirection ceases to function. By that point, though, you have the usual
FreeBSD serial console facilities and thus have a smooth transition. I
suspect the same applies for any other Intel motherboard that supports
serial redirection. You can confirm support for serial redirection by
downloading the Technical Product Specifications for the Intel board
you're interested in through support.intel.com.

We have Tyan boards at my current employer with serial redirection and
they work the same way.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite@gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org



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