RHEL5 Kickstart and serial console

[Ben]

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009, Adam Goodall wrote:

> I'm trying to setup a RHEL5.4 server to output to a serial console with as 
> little setup effort as possible.

A laudable goal (-:


> When i was doing the same on RHEL4, it was a two step process:
> 1) add console=ttyS1,19200 to the kernel boot argument at install time
> 2) add bootloader --location mbr --append="console=ttyS1,19200" to the
> kickstart file.

Well, here's selected bits from my setup.

RHEL4:
1) label rhel4
    kernel vmlinuz4
    append initrd=init4.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/rhel4.cfg console=ttyS0,9600

2) bootloader --location=mbr --append="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600 rhgb quiet"

Not quite sure about the first part of the --append, but it works and has 
done for years.  We use ttyS0 on every Dell and Sun box I've ever 
kickstarted.  Perhaps RHEL5 has relabeled your serial port?


RHEL5:
1) label rhel5
    kernel vmlinuz5
    append initrd=init5.img ks=hd:sdb1:/configs/rhel5.cfg console=ttyS0,9600

2) bootloader --location=mbr --append="console=ttyS0,9600 rhgb quiet"

Here, the --append section is identical to yours (other than S0 over S1). 
Which is surprising if your setup setup doesn't work...


> This set up everything required in the following files:
> /boot/grub/grub.conf
> /etc/inittab
> /etc/securetty
>
> And life was easy...
>
> I am now trying to do the same thing in RHEL5 but it is not having the 
> same effect. Using the setup above, It sets up the grub config but doesnt 
> setup the inittab or securetty entries, resulting in no output to the 
> serial console after the server has booted. Obviously i could handle this 
> in the post section and ammend the files as required, but i was wondering 
> if anyone had an elegant solution that makes it as easy as the way i did 
> it on RHEL4?

Well, the above lines have worked for me on RHEL5.x up to current for 32 and 
64 bit on over 80 assorted machines (with only one serial port).  Perhaps if 
there's no ttyS1 on your boxes (being discovered as ttyS0) then the install 
isn't adding the necessary lines.

Just a guess.

Ben
-- 
Unix Support, MISD, University of Cambridge, England
Plugger of wire, typer of keyboard, imparter of Clue
         Life Is Short.          It's All Good.