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PLA-Support>Sun Systems>x86>Engineered Systems HW>SN-x64: EXALYTICS
 

Applies to:

Goal

How to configure the ILOM serial console on Exalytics systems

Solution

Note- this document covers "BareMetal" installations and does not cover "Virtualized" installations

For Exalytics systems if you want the ILOM console to receive normal console messages and to allow logins the following steps should be followed. Setting this up will allow access to the host and it's console messages from the ILOM cli using the "start /SP/console" command. Setting the system to send console output to the ILOM serial console will have the added benefit of capturing any console messages and boot information in the console log kept by the ILOM which can be helpful when troubleshooting issues.

The OS and the ILOM settings for the serial port speed need to match, start by checking the serial port speed setting in the ILOM. The default is normally set to 9600

From the WebGUI this can be checked by navigating to the ILOM Administration - Connectivity section, select the Serial Port tab and check the setting for the Host Serial Port.

From the ILOM cli this can be checked with the command "show /SP/serial/host"

For an Exalytics system you should also check the BIOS setup to ensure it's Serial Console setting also matches.
Enter the BIOS setup and navigate to "Advanced" -> "Serial Port Console Redirection" make sure "Console Redirection" is Enabled and check the "bits per second" value it should default to 9600.

Note - for these examples the default speed of 9600 is used but the speed may be set to a higher setting if needed. The requirement is that all the speed settings match so if it is changed in one location make sure the setting is changed similarly in the other locations configured in these directions.

After you have confirmed the serial port speed settings (or set them as desired) the OS needs to be configured. There are two pieces to setting up the serial console:
1 - setting the system to send the console messages to the serial console and
2 - configuring the OS to start a getty program so that a login process is invoked so that the host can be logged into.

To get the console messages sent to the serial console you need to edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file. In this file you need to add "console=ttyS0,9600n8 console=tty1" to the end of the lines that begin with kernel.

For example:

To get the login program running on the serial console we need to setup the system to start the agetty program. The process to do this differs between Linux OSs based on el5 and el6.

For el5 based OS images (Exalytics Image versions up to 1.0.0.7 and 2.0.0.0.el5) this may already be configured so that you just need to check and confirm the needed line is there and correct (make sure the serial settings match those that you checked earlier)

open the /etc/inittab file and look for the console line it should look similar to "co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -h -t 60 ttyS0 9600 vt100-nav" If this line is not present in your inittab file add it to the bottom as shown in this example:

For el6 based OS images (Exalytics Image versions 2.0.0.0.el6 and later) the agetty program for the serial console is started by creating a configuration file in the /etc/init directory.

Create the file /etc/init/ttyS0.conf using vi (or your preferred text editor) with the following contents:
(Or you can download this file: ttyS0.conf and just copy it to /etc/init )

After you have the console entry added to the kernel line of grub.conf and you have configured agetty to start the login program reboot the server. After the system completes it's reboot you should be able to log into the ILOM and start the ILOM serial console, you will now see all console messages output to this connection and be presented with a login to access the host.

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