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gdstew

Member

Registered: 2018-11-20

Posts: 12  

[SOLVED] serial terminal login stopped working

I have a problem at the serial terminal log in prompt that I have tried everything I know to try to fix it with no results. The computer is an NFS server that was using an older motherboard that started emitting burning down the house smells and had to be shut down. It was/will be running Devuan Beowulf with a 4.19.0-18 kernel and fully working serial terminal when it was shut down. Before doing anything else I installed the new motherboard changing nothing else and booted it using a drive I use for testing also running Devuan Beowulf, ran e2fsck on all partitions on the NFS server drive with no errors found. After replacing the motherboard it will no longer accept input from the serial terminal at the log in prompt. The GRUB boot screen will accept input from the serial terminal and I have also rechecked the serial hardware using minicom just to be sure.

After verifying the hardware I checked the inittab and securetty files and they were correct. I then upgraded 2 packages and reinstalled the kernel image (it does work with a graphics card and keyboard installed) with no effect. I have also noticed that there are no periodic disk accesses happening so it looks like the kernel may be hanging up after the log in prompt. So I am now looking for some solutions short of reinstalling Devuan.

Thanks.

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,251  

Re: [SOLVED] serial terminal login stopped working

Possibly the nomodeset is missing from the boot line?

afair, Beowulf installer iso has nomodeset for the installer itself but it doesn't always get added automatically to grub's boot line.

gdstew

Member

Registered: 2018-11-20

Posts: 12  

Re: [SOLVED] serial terminal login stopped working

Thanks for the reply. I will look into that but if it is not there now it was also not there when it was working. This was not a new install, the SATA SSD I'm trying to boot from now is exactly the same one it was working with before. And before I tried to boot from it again I ran e2fsck on all the partitions on that drive booting it from a hard drive I use with by motherboard test stand and there were no errors. That is the really frustrating part, I've done very similar things before with no problems so it should have just worked. The other thing that is very odd is that I can enter in text at the log in prompt from the same SATA SSD drive when a graphics card and keyboard is installed using the original install inittab that was saved before I modified it to boot from the serial terminal.

Last edited by gdstew (2021-11-25 05:18:46)

gdstew

Member

Registered: 2018-11-20

Posts: 12  

Re: [SOLVED] serial terminal login stopped working

After writing my last reply I just decided to upgrade to Devuan Chimaera which was something I was thinking about doing anyway. I was reluctant to "rock the boat" until I was more certain that the new release would not cause any problems especially during the upgrade and I am pretty much there now as I have already upgraded another computer to it and it went very well. Thanks again.

Last edited by gdstew (2021-11-25 12:29:40)

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,581  

Re: [SOLVED] serial terminal login stopped working

Hello:

I have been following this thread because I have never used serial input and was interested to see how it worked.

... other thing that is very odd is that I can enter in text at the log in prompt from the same SATA SSD drive
when a graphics card and keyboard is installed using the original install inittab that was saved before I modified it ...

So ...
What is the difference between the original install inittab and the modified one which then did not work?

And then, what is the difference between that original one and the one in the updated Devuan Chimaera?

Looking at the eventual differences between them will give us a way to diagnose the problem.

Thanks in advance,

A.