Bug#453749: marked as done (Fix serial console detection on ia64)

Your message dated Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:02:03 +0000 with message-id <E1JKXBD-0002U9-0g@ries.debian.org> and subject line Bug#453749: fixed in rootskel 1.58 has caused the attached Bug report to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with. If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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Debian bug tracking system administrator (administrator, Debian Bugs database)

attached mail follows:

Package: finish-install
Version: 2.13
Severity: important
Tags: patch

If you boot an ia64 system[1] without specifying a console= parameter, the kernel will try to map /dev/console to whatever settings were detected from EFI (firmware interface). If EFI uses a serial console,
/dev/console will be mapped to that same serial device.

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d-i interacts with the user via /dev/console, so most of the time the installer doesn't really care what the underlying device is. That is, until the system needs to decide where it should run gettys, and where root logins are permitted. This works is done by 90console.

90console attempts to detect the real console device by dereferencing
/proc/<di-pid>/fd/0. If a system was booted w/ console=ttyS0,
/proc/<di-pid>/fd/0 will link to /dev/ttyS0.

However, on certain ia64 platforms[2], this link points to the ever-so-helpful /dev/console. The only way we've found to identify the correct device is to use a small C program that issues an ioctl to the device to retrieve the line number and speed (thanks to Bryan Stillwell for this research/work[3]).

The workaround for this in etch is to always specify a console= parameter, thereby disabling the automatic console setup.

The attached patch to di-utils adds a slightly modified version of Bryan's utility. This utility was originally called getserialdev - I've renamed it to serial-console-info, since I think it better describes the function. Also, getserialdev's output was of the form:

# ./getserialdev
ttyS2 115200

I've modified this to instead tag the data, so that it should be easier to maintain backwards compatability should this utility provide additional output in the future. e.g.:

# ./serial-console-info
DEV=ttyS2
SPEED=115200 The attached patch to finish-install adds support for using serial-console-info, if available, to 90console. Processing behaves just as before, until it finds that /proc/<di-pid>/fd/0 is pointing at
/dev/console. It will only then run serial-console-info to see if it
can determine that /dev/console is actually a serial device.

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I briefly considered implementing serial console detection entirely with serial-console-info - but decided against it. The major problem is that serial-console-info assumes that any device it finds has a ttyS prefix, which may not always be correct.

[1] Possibly other EFI-based systems as well, I haven't verified
[2] an rx1600 w/ an MP for one
[3] 
https://launchpad.net/bugs/48752

-- 
dann frazier

attached mail follows:

Source: rootskel Source-Version: 1.58 We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of rootskel, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive: rootskel-bootfloppy_1.58_amd64.udeb to pool/main/r/rootskel/rootskel-bootfloppy_1.58_amd64.udeb rootskel_1.58.dsc to pool/main/r/rootskel/rootskel_1.58.dsc rootskel_1.58.tar.gz to pool/main/r/rootskel/rootskel_1.58.tar.gz rootskel_1.58_amd64.udeb to pool/main/r/rootskel/rootskel_1.58_amd64.udeb A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is attached. Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed. If you have further comments please address them to 453749@bugs.debian.org, and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate. Debian distribution maintenance software pp. Otavio Salvador <otavio@debian.org> (supplier of updated rootskel package) (This message was generated automatically at their request; if you believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing ftpmaster@debian.org) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Format: 1.7 Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:58:22 -0200 Source: rootskel Binary: rootskel rootskel-bootfloppy Architecture: source amd64 Version: 1.58 Distribution: unstable Urgency: low Maintainer: Debian Install System Team <debian-boot@lists.debian.org> Changed-By: Otavio Salvador <otavio@debian.org> Description: rootskel - Skeleton root filesystem used by debian-installer (udeb) rootskel-bootfloppy - Skeleton root filesystem used by debian-installer boot floppy (udeb) Closes: 453749 Changes: rootskel (1.58) unstable; urgency=low . [ dann frazier ] * Create more serial device files in the ramdisk before calling busybox init, in case they are needed for a serial console. Closes: #453749. . [ Frans Pop ] * Remove some code supporting kernels other than 2.6. * Minor whitespace and coding style changes. * Remove obsolete d-i-startup.d/S03hotplug and the coldplug script it calls. Files: ad2248df98ad0e7cbe7d2ab5377c612c 819 debian-installer standard rootskel_1.58.dsc 79904c7d924c352185fee6ad33d14e6f 27459 debian-installer standard rootskel_1.58.tar.gz 83655a8d7d979ee3f7913147c1d44d2e 5622 debian-installer standard rootskel_1.58_amd64.udeb 25bd479bb1fde8f92ec6dadb2a7e6137 3040 debian-installer extra rootskel-bootfloppy_1.58_amd64.udeb Package-Type: udeb -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHoapVLqiZQEml+FURAuAoAJ4ltCy72UVE3neiZivCO2WIo6aCsQCfaVCb vzBMXhKX3qaKGohIdhHGbV4= =4tfF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-REQUEST@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org Received on Thu Jan 31 06:19:02 2008