Is a console on serial port a supported feature ?

[edechaux]

Dear all,

I have successfully enabled ESX 3.0 to use a console on a serial port. To make it work I have updated the grub menu.lst as well the inittab files. This allow me to have access to a console using the server (SUN V40z) Service Processor network interface without any network KVM.

Does those modifications could change the ESX standard behaviour and does updating those files would still allow me to have support from VMWare.

The modifications are :

- In the menu.lst file, added some parameters to the "VMware ESX Server" kernel line :

console=ttyS0,115200

- In the inittab, I added a line to make a agetty process to listen on a serial port :

co:2345:respawn;/sbin/agetty ttyS0 115200

Many thanks

--

Eric

[peetz]

Your modifications to the Service console won't have any effect on the ESX (VMKernel) standard behavior.

There are numerous ways to modify the service console like installing additional software packages in it. Some of them are officially supported by VMware (like certain hardware management agents), most of them won't cause any problems, and only few of them may break the COS or even VMKernel (although I cannot think of a single one right now).

To be absolutely sure contact VMware support and ask them.

However, if you ever have a problem with your installation, you might also just undo your changes and make sure that you ca still reproduce your problem before you call VMware support.

\- Andreas

[edechaux]

Thanks you for those precisions. Impact on VMKERNEL and COS was what I wanted to know.

--

Eric