On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Brett Glass wrote:

> I'm attempting to install NetBSD 1.5.2 on a headless Intel server.
> If I do nothing as the CD boots, the serial console (which is
> showing BIOS messages via BIOS redirection) goes dead immediately
> after the kernel loads. If I try to type the command "consdev com0"
> (which is what I would expect to be the right command to redirect
> I/O to the first serial port), I see a "0" character on the terminal
> and then nothing. (I can't tell if this is because the baud rate is
> not being maintained as NetBSD takes over the port or because there's
> some other problem.)

For what it's worth, the serial port should be set to 9600-8N1-XON/XOFF.

> No matter what I try, though, the ANSI
> terminal emulator goes dead and I can't continue the install. What am
> I missing?

A mystery. As you get the "consdev" in the menu, that should mean it's
supported. I find it's less tricky, though, with -DDIRECT_SERIAL wired
into the bootblocks. Here...

    ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/fredb/com0/

are some floppies I made to install NetBSD-1.5.2 on a headless machine
with a serial console (but no BIOS redirection). I didn't keep the
images -- I just made those today from the actual floppies -- so
hopefully they're not corrupt.

This "sysinstall" will detect that you used a serial console, and ask
you if you want to install the serial bootblocks.

The changes were pulled up into my own 1.5.2 tree from current, but now
they've been pulled up to netbsd-1-5, so NetBSD-1.5.3 will have this.

Frederick