Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 06:28:39 -0500 From: Martin McCormick <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Remote Installations using CDROM Message-ID: <E15HOMC-0002uz-00@dc.cis.okstate.edu>
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What might be the best way to initiate the FreeBSD installation process using a serial port? As a computer user who happens to be blind, I have two choices when installing FreeBSD or any other form of UNIX on a new system. I can either grab somebody and talk them through the steps and have them tell me what the console says or I can come up with a strategy to get a serial port working as soon as possible so I can then do it myself like anybody else. The second course of action is really best because we are all busy doing something and tagging someone to watch means they aren't doing their normal job for that time. Besides, if a server should fail on a weekend or at some odd time of night, one ends up being a one-man band. I am going to be installing FreeBSD on 4 IBM Netfinity servers over the next few weeks and would like to just plug in a cable and do that task via a VT100 that has the speech synthesizer in it. Actually, my remote terminal is a P.C. containing the appropriate drivers and hardware to make it talk and also a copy of Kermit to do the VT100 emulation. The question before the group is both a question and a suggestion. The Netfinity boxes have a bootable CDROM and no floppy drive so a virgin system has no way to get started other than the CDROM. Sun work stations used to go serial the instant you turned on the power to the system with the keyboard/mouse module disconnected. It would be good if it was possible to have the P.C. look for some trick key sequence in the very first phase of the boot from CDROM which, if encountered, would activate the first serial port at, say, 9600 N, 8 and 1. The other possible solution would be to burn a CDROM that gets just enough of a kernel going to enable a serial tty so that one can then remove that CD and put in the standard FreeBSD installation disk in order to start the scripts. If that technique was done, it might even be possible to make the starter disk configure tcp/ip and come up on dhcp and register itself so that one could find it with an already-working UNIX system and telnet or ssh in to it for the rest of the installation. What are your thoughts? By the way, I hope there is always going to be a non-GUI route to installation. The present methods need only to be redirected at the earliest possible stage to be fully accessible. Any UNIX that ever goes totally GUI will have greatly compounded system maintenance problems for anybody who needs a special setup. As one tiny bit of background, there is a special VGA replacement adapter produced by ConnectCanada called the Realweasel that sends VGA text data to a serial port on the card, but the Netfinities use a large console port that combines connections for keyboard, mouse and video so I don't think one can just pull the VGA card for a few minutes and stick in the Realweasel. That particular card, when it works, can sure get you through an installation on a normal mother board using a standard CDROM, but that isn't going to work this time. This problem I describe is certainly not unique to FreeBSD. It is actually tied to the fact that 9x% of all P.C. mother boards made have no alternative at boot time to output than bringing up whatever video card is designated in the CMOS as being the display. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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