Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Chris DiTrani]

I'm trying to get a headless Fedora 6 box working with a serial terminal
on com1. I've got grub set up so that kernel output goes to the
terminal, and I've added this line to my inittab:

s0:345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 vt100

but agetty is not being run.

If I run agetty with this same command line explicitly (from a prompt),
then the terminal gets a login prompt and I can login fine, so it seems
to just be a matter of getting init to run agetty.

I've read several how-tos on this but no joy. I've also tried mgetty
with the same results.

Any ideas?

TIA.

Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[terry white]

... ciao:

: on "4-3-2007" "Chris DiTrani" writ:
: Fedora 6 box working with a serial terminal on com1

   first.  i 'think' i recall having seen something about that in the
kernel config stuff.

    and, apropos offered 'setconsole' ...


-- 
... i'm a man, but i can change,
    if i have to , i guess ...

Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Glynn Clements]

Chris DiTrani wrote:

> I'm trying to get a headless Fedora 6 box working with a serial terminal
> on com1. I've got grub set up so that kernel output goes to the
> terminal, and I've added this line to my inittab:
> 
> s0:345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 vt100
> 
> but agetty is not being run.
> 
> If I run agetty with this same command line explicitly (from a prompt),
> then the terminal gets a login prompt and I can login fine, so it seems
> to just be a matter of getting init to run agetty.
> 
> I've read several how-tos on this but no joy. I've also tried mgetty
> with the same results.
> 
> Any ideas?

Are you entering runlevel 3, 4 or 5? If you're booting into
single-user mode, the above won't be run. If you want to use the
terminal in single-user mode, you need to change 345 to 12345.

Is there anything in the log files? If agetty is being run but is
terminating immediately, init will normally log an error.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>

Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Chris DiTrani]

Glynn Clements wrote:

> 
> Are you entering runlevel 3, 4 or 5? If you're booting into
> single-user mode, the above won't be run. If you want to use the
> terminal in single-user mode, you need to change 345 to 12345.

Running at level 3.

> 
> Is there anything in the log files? If agetty is being run but is
> terminating immediately, init will normally log an error.
> 

No errors nor complaints from init in the logs.

Chris

Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Chris DiTrani]

So, two strange things that are probably clues:

1. I can change my inittab line to reference some non-existent
executable (foo) instead of agetty, and init doesn't make any complaint
to syslog after a 'init q'. It does log that it's reloading inittab, but
nothing else. If I mess with the inittab syntax or command set (e.g.
replacing 'respawn' with 'espawn', it also complains to syslog, but
nothing logs for telling it to run a bogus program.

2. I've got no mingetty processes running on this machine either. I
should have an instance for each of my virtual terminals. Maybe this is
because there's not keyboard/mouse/monitor plugged in?

CD

Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Benoît Rouits]

Le mardi 03 avril 2007 à 10:16 -0400, Chris DiTrani a écrit :
> I'm trying to get a headless Fedora 6 box working with a serial terminal
> on com1. I've got grub set up so that kernel output goes to the
> terminal, and I've added this line to my inittab:
> 
> s0:345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 vt100
> 
> but agetty is not being run.
[...]
your line say it will run on levels 3, 4 and 5

> Any ideas?

what is your initdefault ? mine is 2.
> 
> TIA.
> -
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Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Chris DiTrani]

So it turns out I was starting a script-based service in rc.local
without sending it to the background with '&', so the last bit of the
init process wasn't happening.

Haven't been this stumped by something this stupid in a while...

CD

Chris DiTrani wrote:
> I'm trying to get a headless Fedora 6 box working with a serial terminal
> on com1. I've got grub set up so that kernel output goes to the
> terminal, and I've added this line to my inittab:
> 
> s0:345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 vt100
> 
> but agetty is not being run.
> 
> If I run agetty with this same command line explicitly (from a prompt),
> then the terminal gets a login prompt and I can login fine, so it seems
> to just be a matter of getting init to run agetty.
> 
> I've read several how-tos on this but no joy. I've also tried mgetty
> with the same results.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> TIA.
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-admin" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Serial Terminal - Can't get getty to run via inittab

[Adrian Calinescu]

Chris DiTrani wrote:
> So it turns out I was starting a script-based service in rc.local
> without sending it to the background with '&', so the last bit of the
> init process wasn't happening.
> 
> Haven't been this stumped by something this stupid in a while...

If it helps i once spent 2 straight days troubleshooting in mayhem
just to find the problem exactly where you did.
We all got some sort of ADD, just that over time it can get you to
SUBSTRACT.. (ok, ok, that sounded better in my head)


--Adrian.