On 30/06/11 23:14, Paul Lettington wrote: > Scott Ferguson wrote: >> On 30/06/11 17:09, Paul Lettington wrote: >>> On 30/06/11 04:04, Martin McCormick wrote: <snipped> >>>> >>>> Can I boot the CDROM in serial console mode as before? >>> I had to do this recently to install on a serial-only virtual >>> machine, and found that I had to modify the CD to present >>> anything over the serial port. I don't know if I was doing >>> something wrong and it should have been possible with a stock CD, >>> but this worked for me. >>> >>> These are the notes I made while doing it, you should substitute >>> the 6.0.1a version for whatever is current when you do it. >> >> Are you certain the advice you gave a blind person is accurate?? > > Yes, I am certain that what I said in my email is accurate - which > is that it was the procedure I followed when I modified the CD image > to use a serial console for the installer, and that doing so worked > for me. My apologies - I phrased that question poorly. :-( Are you certain that was the only way to achieve a serial console install? > > However I am not certain that this is the best or only way to do it, > and I even said as much in my original email. ? > >> All your instructions do is hard code what can be done at the cli >> or through pre-seeding - with an added difficulty and time factor. > > I've not used pre-seeding before, Then you are more advanced than you suppose ;-p What you described, will work, and *is* preseeding. :-) > so I may be mistaken about its capabilities. Are you saying that it > can be used to change the console for the installer when booting from > a CD, without modifying the CD at all? Yes. The "old" text based CLI interface is still there (see pic) - you need to either hit esc at the start of grub, or arrow down to Help at the first screen, and press enter. <snipped> > >> Did you try to enter "install console=ttyS0,9600n8" at the *CLI*?? > > What CLI would I enter this at? As I said in my original email, I > was using a serial-only virtual machine and saw nothing over the > serial console using the stock CD image. There is no other console > that I would be able to type that in to. Try the previous instructions. > >> I just installed from debian-6.0.1a-i386-kde-CD-1.iso *without* >> modifying the CD, using a serial console. >> <snipped> > > I would be interested to know the details of how you did that. I've already posted them - see upthread. > I am > using KVM rather than XEN, but I don't believe it would be much > different. Then you know more about KVMs than me. Which isn't hard ;-p > > In case I was being foolish when I first did it, I have spun up a > new headless VM just now using an unmodified CD image, as follows: > > --- # virt-install --nographics -r 128 -n testvm --disk > path=/tmp/testvm,size=5,bus=virtio -c > /home/paul/iso/debian-6.0.1a-amd64-netinst.iso > > > Starting install... Creating storage file testvm > | 5.0 GB 00:00 Creating domain... > | 0 B 00:00 Connected to domain testvm Escape character is ^] --- > > It is now sat like that, with the serial port of the VM attached to > my terminal and I am seeing no output. It has been like that for > several minutes now. Using my modified iso, I see output from the > installer straight away. > > Paul. > > I can't help you with VM pass-through issues. There are list for that :-) eg. innitab on client, host and guest, port, pipe/file settings on host, setserial output? UART? etc :-/ NOTE: if the preseed serial console settings you embedded in your customised cd aren't correct - you'll need to use a standard cd as I don't believe you can override them at the cli. Just configuring pass-through for a Virtualbox guest is difficult enough. See attached (small) image for what sits behind the (dancing bear) install gui. Cheers -- “I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'” ~ Bill Hicks
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