I've never used the serial console. I just used the 3.99 restore cd
and then I've set everything else from there.

What do I need to use the serial console? A null modem cable?

The sysctl thing confuses me (I know nothing about the boot process),
are you saying this option had to be set  for me to get in with a
serial console? I thought you just held in the reset button to do
that?



--- Andy Ruhl <acruhl@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/6/07, Glyn Astill <glynastill@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > Well it's crashed before and fsck has only taken about 30 minutes
> > max.
> >
> > Left it on all last night and it was still stuck on fsck this
> > morning. Thats a good 8 hours, and I couldn't hear any disk
> activity.
> 
> That seems like a problem. If you have an i386 box, it might be
> easier
> to put the disk in there and try fsck on there and see if it works.
> 
> Do you know if you can force a "break" with the serial console?
> This
> is the sysctl you'd need to know how it was set:
> 
>  > sysctl ddb.fromconsole
> ddb.fromconsole = 0
> 
> I think it either is or was set to 1 by default, but if you want to
> use a serial console you have to set it to 0 or it will panic the
> box
> every time you log in with a serial console.
> 
> But in this case, forcing a panic would be useful to see where
> you're
> stuck. Seems like a bug that should be fixed. fsck shouldn't hang.
> 
> (I guess if you know fsck is hung, that means you are using a
> serial
> console. If you use it from the beginning at boot time, having this
> sysctl set to 1 isn't necessarily going to cause a panic I think.)
> 
> Andy
> 



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