Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hope this might save someone else some troubleshooting time ...

After running one of my Indys headless for a goodly while, I went and futzed a kernel upgrade (the box is currently running Debian) which left me with a nonbootiing Indy.

Because my only 13w3 monitor is in another building I thought I'd just have a look over a serial connection ... but for some reason I was seeing nothing on either serial port.
I had thought that even with console set to g the box would default to console on serial 1 on boot with no keyboard, but this didn't seem to work.

After eventually giving up and hauling in the monitor and keyboard, I did setenv -p d1 and now all is well.
Might this have something to do with setting nogfxkbd?

Simply removing the keyboard ought to be enough to get a serial console, unless the ``nogfxkbd'' variable is set in the PROM environment. Could you check whether this variable is defined on your system?

Yes, nogfxkbd is set.

So it seems this is the expected behaviour?

I would have thought that logically a system which has nogfxkbd set shoul default to console on serial as the administrator clearly intends to remotely administer the system. Must just be one of those quirks we all love, I suppose!

That's the other way around. nogfxkbd means ``don't mind if no keyboard is plugged, and use the video console anyway'', and by default it is not set. I agree the name of this variable is misleading

Ah - I guess I didn't understand that the second part applied. I assumed the "nogfx" part meant the same as the "[no]kbd"!

bviking - on the odd chance you might find yourself in a similar situation again, this makes a pretty good reference <the link is pointed at nogfxkbd, but the entire document can be useful>: http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... G355140959

Thanks Recondas. Interestingly, that link provides the following description of "nogfxkbd":

No mention (that I could see) of console being sent to video when this variable is set.

And the description of the "console" variable is as follows:


Note "d: Specifies the terminal is not available". Shouldn't that say something like "Specifies a serial console"?