[syslinux] extlinux 6.03 serial console not responding to input

[Andrew J. Schorr]

Hi,

On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 03:21:06AM +0300, Ady via Syslinux wrote:
> I don't know whether the CONSOLE and NOHALT directives shouldn't rather 
> be introduced immediately after the SERIAL directive (when they are 
> used).
> In theory, only the SERIAL directive is recommended to be the first one 
> in the configuration file, but considering that all 3 directives are 
> related to the serial output, I would also say that, when those 
> directives are used, I would use them right after the SERIAL directive, 
> with it being the very first one.
> 
> Changing the location of these 2 directives in the cfg file might not 
> have any effect (in theory), but, as mentioned, the serial behavior has 
> proven to be not exactly "consistent" across every setup.

I tried changing the location to put it at the top of extlinux.conf.
It makes no difference.

> Additionally, I would guess that you are using a boot menu with more 
> than one entry, but since your emails are referencing only one label 
> directive in your tests, I thought I should better ask...
> 
> Are you testing with only one LABEL entry in the configuration file?

There are multiple labels in the file.  Here is the entire extlinux.conf that I
just tested:

serial 0 115200 0x003
CONSOLE 0
NOHALT 1
ui menu.c32
menu title Telemetry ExtLinux Boot Menu
timeout 100

label Linux1
    menu label Fedora21-x86_64 3.19.7-200.fc21
    kernel /vmlinuz-3.19.7-200.fc21.x86_64
    append ro panic=10 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.plymouth=0 vconsole.keymap=us vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C root=UUID=bad45690-82ae-4767-a1ad-919e61630038 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200
    initrd /initramfs-3.19.7-200.fc21.x86_64.img
    menu default

label Linux2
    menu label Fedora21-x86_64 3.19.5-200.fc21
    kernel /vmlinuz-3.19.5-200.fc21.x86_64
    append ro panic=10 rd.dm=0 rd.luks=0 rd.plymouth=0 vconsole.keymap=us vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C root=UUID=bad45690-82ae-4767-a1ad-919e61630038 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200
    initrd /initramfs-3.19.5-200.fc21.x86_64.img

label Memtest1
    menu label memtest86+-4.20
    kernel /memtest86+-4.20
    append  console=ttyS0,115200

label Memtest2
    menu label memtest86+-5.01
    kernel /memtest86+-5.01
    append  console=ttyS0,115200

label riplinux1
    menu label RIPLinuX 13.7 kernel32
    kernel /riplinux/kernel32
    append nokeymap root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=normal video=640x400 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200
    initrd /riplinux/rootfs.cgz

label riplinux2
    menu label RIPLinuX 13.7 kernel64
    kernel /riplinux/kernel64
    append nokeymap root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=normal console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200
    initrd /riplinux/rootfs.cgz

> We have seen building-interaction issues before, so testing with 
> official upstream pre-built binaries as already included in the 
> official archives downloaded from kernel.org is part of a regular 
> troubleshooting process.
> 
> I doubt it would make a difference in this situation, and I am not 
> surprised that Syslinux is not responding to input keys in some serial 
> console, but until the upstream official pre-built binaries are tested 
> too, I would tend to think that there is no way to really discard a 
> building-interaction issue.
> 
> In any case, please remember to replace all the Syslinux-related files 
> that are in use/test, not just the bootloader file, so to avoid 
> version-mismatch errors.

I will try testing this tomorrow.  I will also try testing with a
physical serial port instead of IPMI SOL.

Thanks,
Andy