Re: [gentoo-catalyst] changing inittab

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 11:55 -1000, Joshua Hoblitt wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 09:58:36AM -0700, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 10:00 -0400, Scott Biddlestone wrote:
> > > If you installed livecd-tools, the inittab is overwritten by
> > > /sbin/livecd-functions.sh when the cd boots ( it is backed up to
> > > inittab.old ).  One way to fix it is to  modify the script by creating
> > > a  new livecd-tools ebuild in your portage overlay - copy the current
> > > ebuild and just add the patch to it.
> >
> > Please don't touch livecd-tools.  Don't touch sysvinit.   Instead, do
> > the following in your livecd-stage2.spec file...
> >
> > livecd/bootargs: console=ttyS0,115200
> >
> > That's it.  When the CD is built, it'll have the console appended to
> > both the "normal" and "nofb" kernels.  Either kernel will work perfectly
> > fine for serial console, so you're done.
>
> Eh, isn't that only good for kernel output?  I'd like to actually be
> able to get a shell on the serial line...

<rhetorical>
Why don't people trust that the guy who writes all this crap knows what
he's talking about?
</rhetorical>

:P

Normally, yes, it would only be good for kernel output, but as someone
else mentioned, you have livecd-functions.sh that re-writes the inittab.
Well, guess what triggers it?  That's right, a "console=" option on the
command line.  If you type (or via catalyst, add) console=something,
livecd-functions.sh (via functions.sh in baselayout) will interpret it
and modify inittab accordingly before we ever even hit runlevel 3, so it
starts a console on that serial line for login.

Try it.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation