Working with the serial console
Configure your Arch Linux machine so you can connect to it via the serial console port (com port). This will enable you to administer the machine even if it has no keyboard, mouse, monitor, or network attached to it (a headless server).
As of Arch Linux 2007.x, installation of Arch Linux is possible via the serial console as well.
A basic environment for this scenario is two machines connected using a serial cable (9-pin connector cable). The administering machine can be any Unix/Linux or Windows machine with a terminal emulator program (PuTTY or Minicom, for example).
The configuration instructions below will enable GRUB menu selection, boot messages, and terminal forwarding to the serial console.
Contents
Configuration
Configure console access on the target machine
GRUB2 and systemd
If you configure the serial console in GRUB2 systemd will create a getty listener on the same serial device as GRUB2 by default. So, this is the only configuration needed for Arch running with systemd. To make grub enable the serial console, open /etc/default/grub
in an editor.
Change the GRUB_CMDLINE_DEFAULT
line to start the console on /dev/ttyS0
. Note in the example below, we set two consoles up; one on tty0 and one on the serial port.
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8"
Now we need to tell grub where is the console and what command to start in order to enable the serial console (Note as above for Linux kernel, one can append multiple input/output terminals in grub e.g. GRUB_TERMINAL="console serial" would enable both display and serial):
## Serial console GRUB_TERMINAL=serial GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --speed=38400 --unit=0 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1"
Rebuild the grub.cfg file with following command:
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
After a reboot, getty will be listening on /dev/ttyS0
, expecting 38400 baud, 8 data bits, no parity and one stop bit. When Arch boots, systemd will automatically start a getty session to listen on the same device with the same settings.
Without GRUB2, systemd only
Ignore this entire section if you have configured GRUB2 to listen on the serial interface. If you do not want GRUB2 to listen on the serial device, but only want getty listening after boot then follow these steps.
To start getty listening on /dev/ttyS0
use systemctl:
# systemctl start getty@ttyS0.service
You can check to see the speed(s) getty is using with systemctl, but should be 38400 8N1:
# systemctl status serial-getty@ttyS0.service
To have getty listening on /dev/ttyS0
every boot, enable the service for that specific port:
# systemctl enable serial-getty@ttyS0.service
Now, after a reboot, getty will be listening on device /dev/ttyS0
expecting 38400 baud, 8 data bits, no parity and one stop bit-times.
GRUB v1 and No systemd
Edit the GRUB config file /boot/grub/menu.lst
and add these lines to the general area of the configuration:
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 terminal --timeout=5 serial console
Add suitable console parameters (e.g. change the serial device name or baud rate if required) at the end of your current kernel line:
console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600
For example, the kernel line should look something like this after modification:
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/md0 ro md=0,/dev/sda3,/dev/sdb3 vga=773 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Next, we have to edit /etc/inittab
and add a new agetty line below the existing ones:
c0:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 9600 ttyS0 linux
Edit /etc/securetty
and add an entry for the the serial console, below the existing entries:
ttyS0
Reboot.
Making Connections
Connect using a terminal emulator program
Perform these steps on the machine used to connect the remote console.
Command line
dterm
dtermAUR is a tiny serial communication program. If you invoke it without parameters, it will connect to /dev/ttyS0
at 9600 baud by default. The following example connect to /dev/ttyS0
at 115200 baud, with 8 data bits, no parity bit and 1 stop bit-times:
$ dterm 115200 8 n 1
See its homepage[1] for more examples.
Minicom
minicom can be obtained from the official repositories. Start Minicom in setup mode:
$ minicom -s
Using the textual navigation menu, change the serial port settings to the following:
Serial Device: /dev/ttyS0 Bps/Par/Bits: 9600 8N1
Press Enter to exit the menus (pressing Esc will not save changes).
Remove the modem Init and Reset strings, as we are not connecting to a modem. To do this, under the Modem and Dialing
menu, delete the Init and Reset strings. Optionally save the configuration by choosing save setup as dfl
from the main menu.
Restart minicom with the serial cable connected to the target machine.
To end the session, press Ctrl+A
followed by Ctrl+X
.
picocom
picocom is a tiny dumb-terminal emulation program that is very like minicom, but instead of mini, it is pico. The following example connect to ttyS0
at 9600 bps:
$ picocom -b 9600 /dev/ttyS0
See its manual for detailed usage.
Screen
screen is able to connect to a serial port. It will connect at 9600 baud by default:
$ screen /dev/ttyS0
A different baud rate (e.g. 115200) may be specified on the commmand line.
screen /dev/ttyS0 115200
Serialclient
Serialclient[2] is a CLI client for serial connection written in ruby. Install it with the following:
# pacman -S ruby # gem install serialclient
Then, you can use like this:
$ serialclient -p /dev/ttyS0
And, for Windows
On Windows machines, connect to the serial port using programs like PuTTY[3] or Terminalbpp[4].
Graphical front-ends
gtktermAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] provides a graphical interface to the task, with most abilities provided by vte.
cutecomAUR is another gui enabled serial monitor.
putty is also available for Linux.
Installing Arch Linux using the serial console
- Connect to the target machine using the method described above.
- Boot the target machine using the Arch Linux installation CD.
- When the bootloader appears, select Boot Arch Linux (<arch>) and press
Tab
to edit - Append
console=ttyS0,38400
and pressEnter
. - Now systemd should detect ttyS0 and spawn a serial getty on it. Login as
root
and start the installation as usual.
Troubleshooting
Ctrl-C and Minicom
If you are having trouble sending a Control-C command through minicom you need to switch off hardware flow control in the device settings (minicom -s), which then enables the break.
Resizing a terminal
Unlike ssh, serial connection does not have a mechanism to transfer something like SIGWINCH
when a terminal is resized. This will cause weird problem with some full-screen programs (e.g. less
) when you resized your terminal emulator's window.
Resize the terminal via stty
is a workaround:
$ stty rows lines cols columns
However the above one requires you to manually input the proper geometry. The following examples should simplify the work.
1. There is a less-known utility called resize
, which is shipped with xterm, can solve this problem. Invoke it without parameter after you resize the terminal emulator's window:
$ resize
2. In the case that you do not want to install xterm, it is possible to do the same work via a simple shell function. Put the following function into your zshrc, invoke it without parameter after you resize the terminal emulator's window:
rsz() { if [[ -t 0 && $# -eq 0 ]];then local IFS='[;' escape geometry x y print -n '\e7\e[r\e[999;999H\e[6n\e8' read -sd R escape geometry x=${geometry##*;} y=${geometry%%;*} if [[ ${COLUMNS} -eq ${x} && ${LINES} -eq ${y} ]];then print "${TERM} ${x}x${y}" else print "${COLUMNS}x${LINES} -> ${x}x${y}" stty cols ${x} rows ${y} fi else [[ -n ${commands[repo-elephant]} ]] && repo-elephant || print 'Usage: rsz' ## Easter egg here :) fi }