Console Locking Up

[Joe Votour <vulture@vulturesnest.net>]

Hmmm...  I thought that my response to this went out, but apparently 
not...

Anyway, I've experienced the same thing with OpenBSD, and I'm inclined 
to believe that it's something to do with either the OpenBSD console 
driver, or the KVM itself.

I've only used the Belkin KVM's, but my experience indicates that 
OpenBSD doesn't seem to like the way that the KVM filters the keyboard 
input.  My first experience with KVM's was when I was setting up a 
network for my company's display at this year's E3 show.  I was setting 
up a network with a few Windows machines (for game servers) and an 
OpenBSD machine as the gateway machine (running IPF).  The Windows 
machines would work fine on the KVM, but as soon as I switched to the 
OpenBSD machine, the console would not work.  Hence I used SSH to login 
to the OpenBSD box.

Then, about a month ago, I acquired some PC's, and I wanted to share 
one keyboard and monitor amongst them.  So, I bought a Belkin KVM (in 
fact the same model that we used at E3), which was certified for Linux, 
Windows 9x/NT and Novell.  Things worked fine as long as I stayed in 
console mode on the Linux machine, but when I loaded X-Windows on the 
Linux machine, the OpenBSD console locked up.

So...  Does anybody out there know the differences between the Linux 
and OpenBSD console drivers that would cause these problems?

Joe

>I'm running OpenBSD 2.6-STABLE, and I'm experiencing wierd console 
>locking problems. If I a) login via console and don't interact with 
>the system through the console, I find it locks up, or if I don't 
>login for a long time, the console stops responding. The system still 
>works (ie ssh, ftp, dns -- its my router/firewall system), it's just 
>the console locking I have a problem with. The machine itself is a 
>Dell OptiPlex GXi (Pentium 166 with 64 megs of ram), and it is on a 
>KVM switch. I seriously doubt it's the kvm switch thats the problem, 
>because I also have a linux and FreeBSD box connected to it, and no 
>problems there. If anyone has a solution or maybe an idea, please 
>email me back.
>
>--------------------------------
>Tony Lambiris [tony@themail.com]
>OpenBSD: Because I care. [www.openbsd.org]
>-------------------------------- 
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