OpenBSD/i386 and serial console

[Thomas Graichen <graichen@rzpd.de>]

i just want to pass all i found out now about using OpenBSD/i386 with
the new bootblocks and a serial console along to other interested and
maybe someone can answer the some questions i got:

first to use a serial console on an OpenBSD/i386 machine you have to
connect a terminal to one of the serial ports (com0 or com1 in the
bootblock detection naming sheme) set it to std values (9600 etc.) and
create a file /etc/boot.conf containing the following line

--- snip ---
set tty com0
--- snip ---

the com0 line might also be com1 if you use the second serial port -
this file is read by /boot at boot-time and will result in /boot
switching it's output to the serial console - also you'll have to
compile the kernel with the option COMCONSOLE - so that all console
output will go to the serial port ... ok - that's all so far - maybe
worth adding to the faq (if not already there somethere) - worked
quite well for me ... _but_ ... :-)

first i was a bit irritated by the described possibility to uncomment
the -DSERIAL in /sys/arch/i386/stand/mbr/Makefile - it looks like it
doesn't change anything on the behaviour of /boot wrt the serial
console (and due to the comments about it in mbr.S is only doing stuff
not really required) - can anyone (maybe toby ?) please tell me what
it is good for and what is the very similar stuff in biosboot.S good
for ?

another thing is that the serial console stuff works fine here with a
dec vt420 terminal but not with a nokia vt220 compatible one (which on
the other side works fine with the old bootblocks -
i.e. arch/i386/boot - compiled with -DSERIAL defined - the new ones
simply hang and don't display anything on the serial console) - anyone
any idea what might be the problem here (all trivial stuff like all
relevant terminal settings are extensively tested out) - did the old
bootblocks anykind of initialization of the line the new no longer do
- any help appreciated ... a lot of thanks in advance - and maybe the
above stuff can help someone

t

-- 
  thomas graichen - graichen@rzpd.de graichen@OpenBSD.org graichen@FreeBSD.org

  perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when
      there is no longer anything to take away    antoine de saint-exupery