[Bug 590709] Re: Recovery menu doesn't show up on serial console

[Tore Anderson]

It is better on Oneiric beta 2, the menu shows up on the serial console,
but the graphics are garbled so it's pretty much impossible to see what
you're doing. I'll attach a screenshot.

I used a KVM-based virtual machine in order to test - by default,
/dev/ttyS0 on the VM will be redirected to a device in /dev/pts you can
use minicom towards (at least when using virt-manager - check the
libvirt logs to see which /dev/pts device was assigned). In order to
activate the serial console, apply the following patch to the
/etc/default/grub and run "update-grub". The grub menu will then show up
on the serial console on every subsequent boot.

--- /etc/default/grub.dpkg-dist 2011-09-24 14:39:13.085554604 +0200
+++ /etc/default/grub   2011-09-24 15:01:40.204648670 +0200
@@ -4,12 +4,10 @@
 #   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
 
 GRUB_DEFAULT=0
-GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
-GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
 GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
-GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
+GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=ttyS0,115200n8"
 
 # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
 # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
@@ -17,7 +15,8 @@
 #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
 
 # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
-#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
+GRUB_TERMINAL=serial
+GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --stop=1"
 
 # The resolution used on graphical terminal
 # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE

I also install the file /etc/init/ttyS0.conf containing the lines below,
so that I can actually log in on the serial console after a normal boot.
This is not necessary in order to reproduce the recovery menu issue,
though.

start on runlevel [23]
stop on runlevel [!23]
respawn
exec /sbin/getty -L 115200 ttyS0

-- 
Tore Anderson


** Attachment added: "console.png"
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/590709/+attachment/2452526/+files/console.png

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/590709

Title:
  Recovery menu doesn't show up on serial console

Status in “friendly-recovery” package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: friendly-recovery

  When booting recovery mode on a server with a serial console, the
  recovery menu never shows up, and no root shell or anything else is
  offered as an alternative.  You see some bootup messages from init
  scripts and the like, then nothing.

  If you plug in a VGA monitor you'll see the recovery menu and it works
  fine.  However, one of the main advantages of having a serial console
  is to be able to administer the servers in a potentially unmanned data
  center in a "out of band" fashion, so this is a big problem compared
  to the behaviour in Dapper for us at least.

  Tore

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