FirstServed Tech Blog - FirstServed and the Art of Server Tuning

Hi,

If you want to configure a serial console on your Dell PowerEdge R410 (or R710) dedicated server with CentOS 5.4 (or 5.3 and probably also the Red Hat Enterprise systems) you can use these guidelines.
In the Bios:

Under "Serial Communication":
Serial Communication: On with Console Redirection via COM1
Serial Port Address: Serial Device1=COM2,Serial Device2=COM1
External Serial Connector: Serial Device2
Failsafe Baud Rate: 115200
Remote Terminal Type: VT100/VT220
Redirection After Boot: Enabled (so grub displays)

Then you configure Grub:

title CentOS (2.6.18-164.6.1.el5) Serial
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5.img

This makes the kernel display it’s messages on screen and over the serial console.

In /etc/securetty append:

ttyS0
ttyS1

This way root can log in using the serial console.

Finally configure the inittab (/etc/inittab) and add the following line:

co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 115200 linux

Now reboot and enjoy pure serial console goodness over ip (ipmi).

(Oh, don’t forget to enable IPMI over lan in the iDrac configuration and to set a username, password and ip-address.
The iDrac 6 configuration flashes by when the server boots.)

Tags: dedicated hosting, dell

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 5:01 pm and is filed under BIOS, Grub, Hardware, IPMI, serial console. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.