Now, edit /etc/inittab and add the following line:

co:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -t 60 ttyS0 9600 vt100

This will spawn agetty in runlevels 12345 on serial port 1 with 9600 baud rate and vt100 emulation.

Next you need to edit /etc/grub.conf and comment out splashimage line so boot menu gets rendered properly. Then add following two lines:

serial --unit=0 --speed=9600
terminal --timeout=10 console serial

This will initialize serial port 1 after GRUB startup. If you want to use serial port 2 you would set –unit=1. The terminal we will be using are console and serial in that order, with timeout of 10 seconds. Terminal gets selected depending on where keystroke is detected first, before timeout runs out. If timeout expires, first terminal specified is used.

Finally, append following to the kernel line: console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600n8. So it will end up looking something like this:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-67.ELsmp ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600n8

Now, you need to add serial port device name to /etc/securetty. This file specifies devices where root can log in. Just append ttyS0 (serial port 1) to the end of the file.

Time to reboot and go to BIOS’s Advanced Settings. Select Console Redirection to Serial Port A and verify you have correct baud rate selected. Reboot the server for all changes to take effect.

At this point SP might not have an IP address assigned, so assign it one using V40z’s front panel. Once you configured SP with IP address, subnet mask and default gateway, ssh to the IP address, from local subnet, using the following:

bash-3.00# ssh setup@IP

You will be asked to setup SP usernames and passwords. When you are done, ssh back to the SP using one of the usernames you have set up, and disable and then re-enable Serial Over LAN:

localhost $ platform set console -s platform
localhost $ platform set console -s sp -e -S 9600

After the SP has been re-enabled, it might be a good idea to set up command prompt so you know which server you are logged into:

localhost $ sp set hostname ultra-sp

Now you can access the console using:

ultra-sp $ platform console

After you connect to the console you can get help by pressing CTRL+E followed by c and ?.Here is sample output:

----
ultra-sp $ platform console
[Enter `^Ec?' for help]
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 4
Kernel 2.4.21-3.EL on an i686

ultra login:
[help]
.    disconnect                        ;    move to another console
a    attach read/write                 b    send broadcast message
c    toggle flow control               d    down a console
e    change escape sequence            f    force attach read/write
g    group info                        i    information dump
L    toggle logging on/off             l?   break sequence list
l0   send break per config file        l1-9 send specific break sequence
m    display the message of the day    o    (re)open the tty and log file
p    replay the last 60 lines          r    replay the last 20 lines
s    spy read only                     u    show host status
v    show version info                 w    who is on this console
x    show console baud info            z    suspend the connection
|    attach local command              ?    print this message
<cr> ignore/abort command              ^R   replay the last line
ooo send character by octal code
----

At this point you should have a usable network console. You might want to make additional setup changes to the SP to fit your environment.

The first time I issued platform console command in SP I got this error:

console: connect: 59372@console: Connection refused

Rebooting SP using sp reboot fixed the issue for me.

This was not something I wanted and I needed to disable it. In order to do so I had to edit /kernel/drv/fp.conf file and tell Solaris not to enable MPxIO on internal disks. So I added the following line at the end of fp.conf file:

name="fp" parent="/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4" port=0 mpxio-disable="yes";

This line tells Solaris to disable MPxIO on port 0 for all devices whose parent device is /pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4. Of course, similar line should be added for all HBA’s and ports you do not want to have under MPxIO’s control. You can get the parent device from your /var/adm/messages file or from device links pointing to the internal disks. Here is a partial list of device links:

<-----------------SNIP---------------->

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s0 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s1 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:b
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s2 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:c
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s3 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:d
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s4 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:e
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s5 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:f
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s6 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:g
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 70 Jun 12 11:50 c1t0d0s7 -> ../../devices/pci@8,600000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w2100002037c3e2ef,0:h

<-----------------SNIP---------------->

Configuration is straight forward, using scadm command. To use it:

bash-3.00# cd /usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin

First, let’s see the parameters that can be set:

bash-3.00# ./scadm show
if_network="true"
if_modem="false"
if_connection="telnet"
if_emailalerts="false"
sys_autorestart="xir"
sys_bootrestart="none"
sys_bootfailrecovery="none"
sys_maxbootfail="3"
sys_xirtimeout="900"
sys_boottimeout="900"
sys_wdttimeout="60"
netsc_tpelinktest="true"
netsc_dhcp="false"
netsc_ipaddr="10.1.1.1"
netsc_ipnetmask="255.255.255.0"
netsc_ipgateway="10.1.1.254"
mgt_mailhost=""
mgt_mailalert=""
sc_customerinfo=""
sc_escapechars="#."
sc_powerondelay="false"
sc_powerstatememory="false"
sc_clipasswdecho="true"
sc_cliprompt="sc"
sc_clitimeout="0"
sc_clieventlevel="2"
sc_backupuserdata="true"
sys_eventlevel="2"

You can change the parameters using:

scadm set [parameter] [value]

To get SC accessible over the network, if_connection, netsc_ipaddr, netsc_ipnetmask and netsc_ipgateway parameters need to be set. After those parameters are set you will probably have to restart SC using scadm resetrsc for changes to take effect. This does not affect the server itself. Once SC is back up, you can gain access using the method specified in if_connection parameter and then log in using ALOM credentials.

Some server models, such as SunFire V490 do not have SC. Instead they come, at least they used to, with RSC. To use it you will have to download RSC software from Sun. Configuration is similar to SC. If this is your initial configuration of RSC, you can use rsc-config script. It will ask you a bunch of questions and configure RSC for you. Alternatively you can use rscadm utility. To use it

bash-3.00# cd /usr/platform/`uname -i`/rsc

Let’s see some RSC parameters:

bash-3.00# ./rscadm show
mail_enabled="false"
ip_mode="config"
ppp_enabled="false"
tpe_link_test="true"
serial_baud="9600"
serial_parity="none"
serial_stop="1"
serial_data="8"
customerinfo=""
ip_addr="10.1.1.1"
ip_netmask="255.255.255.0"
ip_gateway="10.1.1.254"
mailhost=""
mailuser=""
ppp_local_ip_addr="0.0.0.0"
ppp_remote_ip_addr="0.0.0.0"
hostname="pas2"
escape_char="~"

Once you are happy with your configuration you also have to set input-device and output-device Openboot variables to rsc-console.

SC and RSC are very similar. One notable difference is availability of modem in RSC. For more info check out scadm and rscadm man pages. Pretty useful stuff…