Can BIOS output be configured to print to a virtualized serial port?

Kenton Cabiness
2011-07-08T21:03:12Z

We are trying to configure a system using KVM as an abstraction layer to
make our software more portable.

We would like to configure our system so that the BIOS output (DHCP
information in particular) is directed to the same pty as the console
connection (ttyS0) so that this output can be logged and the boot
process can be monitored.

It seems that the BIOS (seabios) prints it's output to the graphical
interface (which ends up being tty1), while the console is ttyS0 when a
console interface is configured in the XML file.

We are using RHEL 6.1, libvirt-0.8.7-18, virt-manager-0.8.6-4,
seabios-0.6.1.2-3, and qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.160.

Is this possible or are we stuck with using using virt-manager (or some
other VNC application) to monitor the initialization of the virtual
machines?

Thanks,
Kenton