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IBM System x®

Remote Serial
Console using the
RSA II Slimline
Dave Pierson
davepierson@us.ibm.com
IBM Network Transformation Center

Ed Klodnicki
klodnick@us.ibm.com
IBM Systems & Technology Group

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2009. All rights reserved.


IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Revision History
1.0 – May 7, 2009 Initial DRAFT Version
1.1 – May 7, 2009 Added models supported; added actual use section after setup
1.2 – June 8, 2009 Added trademarks and copyright

Notices:
This paper is intended to provide information regarding IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline. It discusses
findings based on configurations that were created and tested under laboratory conditions. These findings may not be realized in all
customer environments, and implementation in such environments may require additional steps, configurations, and performance
analysis. The information herein is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, express or implied. This information does not constitute a
specification or form part of the warranty for any IBM or non-IBM products.

Information in this document was developed in conjunction with the use of the equipment specified, and is limited in application to
those specific hardware and software products and levels.

The information contained in this document has not been submitted to any formal IBM test and is distributed as is. The use of this
information or the implementation of these techniques is a customer responsibility and depends on the customer’s ability to evaluate
and integrate them into the customer’s operational environment. While each item may have been reviewed by IBM for accuracy in a
specific situation, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results will be obtained elsewhere. Customers attempting to adapt
these techniques to their own environments do so at their own risk.

IBM may not officially support techniques mentioned in this document. For questions regarding officially supported techniques,
please refer to the product documentation, announcement letters, or contact the IBM Support Line at 1-800-IBM-SERV.
This document makes references to vendor-acquired applications or utilities. It is the customer responsibility to obtain licenses of
these utilities prior to their usage.

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2009. All rights reserved. U.S. Government Users Restricted Rights
– Use, duplication, or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................................... 3
Overview.................................................................................................................................................... 4
Hardware Models Supported..................................................................................................................... 4
Hardware Used In Example ...................................................................................................................... 4
Firmware Pre-requisites ............................................................................................................................ 4
Configure Server BIOS.............................................................................................................................. 5
Configure the RSA..................................................................................................................................... 7
Operating System Info/Modifications......................................................................................................... 8
Configuring the Client and Connecting ................................................................................................... 10

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Overview
One feature of the RSA II adapter is the ability to redirect a System x server serial console
via the RSA and view it from within the RSA telnet or ssh client. This feature is very useful
to many customers that want to perform server management actions via scripts which is
generally easier to do in a text based environment. This paper will not go into great deal
regarding serial console redirection, but is more intended as a recipe for how to simply
make it work and some of the common issues encountered.

Hardware Models Supported

Server Using the RSA II Slimline Adapter Serial Redirection


Supported
System x3200 (4362, 4363) Yes, COM 2
System x3200 M2 (4367, 4368) Yes, COM 2
System x3250 (4364, 4365, 4366) Yes, COM 2
System x3250 M2 (4190, 4191, 4194) Yes, COM 2
System x3350 (4192, 4193) Yes, COM 2
System x3400 (7973, 7974, 7975, 7976) Yes, COM 2
System x3500 (7797) Yes, COM 2
System x3550 (1913, 7978) Yes, COM 2
System x3650 (1914, 6444, 6446, 6447, 7979) Yes, COM 2
System x3655 (7985) Yes, COM 2
System x3755 (8877) Yes, COM 2
System x3800 (8865, 8866) No
xSeries 236 (8841) No
xSeries 260 (8865) No
xSeries 336 (1879, 8837, 8838) No
xSeries 346 (1880, 8840) No
xSeries 366 (8863) No
System x3850 (7362, 7365, 8863, 8864) No
System x3950 (7363, 7366, 8872, 8878) No
System x3950E (7364, 7367, 8874, 8879) No
xSeries 460 (8872) No
xSeries 460-MXE (8874) No

Hardware Used In Example


(1) x3550 – Model-Type 7978-AC1
o BIOS – 1.14 - BuildID: GFE144AUS
o Baseboard Management Controller – 1.42 – BuildID: GFBT58A
o RSA Firmware – 1.18 – BuildID: GFEP33B

Firmware Pre-requisites
Before you get too far into setting up the RSA to provide console serial redirection make sure that
you have relatively current firmware installed on the BIOS, BMC, and RSA. It is not necessary to
have the versions listed above but make sure it is greater to or equal to the version listed above.

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Configure Server BIOS


This may vary by server model but you will need to enable the second serial port on the server as
shown below. The second serial port may be called “Serial Port B” or “Serial Port 2”.

1. Press F1 at POST to enter the BIOS setup

2. Select Devices and I/O Ports as shown in Figure 1 below

Figure 1 BIOS Setup Main Menu

3. Select Serial Port B or whatever the second port is called and set it to “Auto configure” as shown
in Figure 2

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Figure 2 Enable second serial

4. Select “Remote Console Redirection” from the screen shown in figure 2. Set the settings as
shown in figure 3 below.
Note: Setting the baud rate to 19200 is necessary…faster is not better in this case!

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Figure 3 Remote Console Redirection Settings

5. Save the settings and exit from the BIOS configuration. The server will now reboot.

Configure the RSA


It is necessary to configure the RSA so that it is setup for console redirection and it’s serial port
settings match the serial port settings on the server. Follow the steps below to complete this setup.

1. Telnet to the RSA and login to the CLI.


Note: The default username is USERID with a password of PASSW0RD with a zero

2. At the RSA prompt execute the command shown in figure 4 below to configure the RSA serial
port for console redirection.
“portcfg com2 –serred enabled –b 19200 –p none –s 1”

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

Figure 4 RSA Configuration

Operating System Info/Modifications


There are some modifications that will likely need to be made to the host system to make it
optimal for serial administration. I used Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as my host operating system but
these modifications should apply to all Linux based systems.

1. Display the serial port information on the host system: dmesg | grep tty

2. Modify /etc/inittab to support serial logins. Create a backup of this file before modifying so that you
can revert if need be. See potential changes in bold below:

id:3:initdefault:

# System initialization.
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# When our UPS tells us power has failed, assume we have a few minutes
# of power left. Schedule a shutdown for 2 minutes from now.
# This does, of course, assume you have powerd installed and your
# UPS connected and working correctly.
pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"

# If power was restored before the shutdown kicked in, cancel it.
pr:12345:powerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "Power Restored; Shutdown Cancelled"

# Run gettys in standard runlevels


1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

# Run xdm in runlevel 5


x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

# Run agetty on COM2/ttyS1


s1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L -f /etc/issueserial 19200 ttyS1 vt100
3. If you wish to enable root login via serial you will need to add the serial port device to the
/etc/securetty file as shown below in bold.

console
ttyS1
vc/1
vc/2
vc/3

4. Modify /etc/grub.conf to set the serial port as the default system console. If you want to see the
startup or shutdown messages at the serial console you will want to make this change. See
modifications in bold below.

#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-92.el5PAE)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.el5PAE ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
console=ttyS1,19200

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.el5PAE.img

5. Install the RSA II daemon on the host system. This daemon will allow additional communication
between the host OS and the RSA adapter. This will enable graceful shutdowns from the RSA CLI
using the “power cycle –s” command for example. The RSA daemon can be found here: http://www-
947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/docdisplay?brandind=5000008&lndocid=MIGR-
5071676

6. In order to incorporate the changes above please re-boot the host.

Configuring the Client and Connecting

1. The RSA accepts client connections via telnet and ssh. Telnet is the only connection method that is
enabled by default. You must enable ssh connections in the RSA prior to connecting via ssh. See
the connection syntax below:

Telnet: telnet <RSA_IP_Address>


SSH: ssh –l <Username> <RSA_IP_Address>

Note: I used the GNOME Terminal as the terminal to launch telnet or ssh from. The windows
command prompt or Putty would be some other client options. I did find that the GNOME Terminal is
setup by default to launch a help dialog window when F1 is pressed. This posed problems for
entering the BIOS setup from the serial console. The fix was to modify GNOME Terminal to disable
the F1 keyboard shortcut. This is modified from within the GNOME Terminal application under Edit -
> Keyboard Shortcuts as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5 Disable the Help → Contents Shortcut

Note: The default username on the RSA is USERID and the default password is PASSW0RD with a
zero.

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IBM System x Remote Serial Console using the RSA II Slimline

2. Once logged into the telnet/ssh session you will be at a prompt similar to the one shown on page 8 in
figure 4. At this point to launch the serial console type console 2 and press enter.

3. When you are finished with the serial console session and wish re-enter the RSA command line
interface, you should type the 'Enter CLI' key sequence as defined in the RSA web or CLI interface.
This sequence is user definable, but the default sequence is defined to be to Esc (.

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