Re: Serial-Over-Lan cannot display bios

creatiwit · ‎03-23-2009

I am trying to use AMT and Serial-Over-Lan. I can connect to the remote machine send reboot commands etc. But I cannot get it to reboot to BIOS or display anything on the client side terminal. the remote machine is a Thinkpad t400

Lance_A_Intel · ‎03-24-2009

Quoting - creatiwit

I am trying to use AMT and Serial-Over-Lan. I can connect to the remote machine send reboot commands etc. But I cannot get it to reboot to BIOS or display anything on the client side terminal. the remote machine is a Thinkpad t400

Hello,
What are you using to try these features (AMT SDK samples, Manageability DTK, ...)?
Was you AMT system provisioned in SMB mode or Enterprise?

creatiwit · ‎03-24-2009

Quoting - Lance Atencio (Intel)

Hello,
What are you using to try these features (AMT SDK samples, Manageability DTK, ...)?
Was you AMT system provisioned in SMB mode or Enterprise?

I am using the DTK downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/dfbb79, the system is provisioned in SMB mode. The current problem I have is the following, I finally got it to reboot into BIOS, I then exit from BIOS and as soon as the debian would start booting up I will lose any output on my remote console.

I added a console=ttyS0,115200 to the kernel config, now i can bootlog messages but as soon as X starts I again lose serial connectivity. The console redirect does not seem to work all the time.

Lance_A_Intel · ‎03-25-2009

Hello,
Glad to hear that your reboot to BIOS is working.

If I'm understanding you correctly, sounds like what you are now seeing is that when X Windows comes up on the AMT system you can't see it in the remote SOL console. This would be because SOL only supports text redirection. Once graphics enter the picture (pun intended ;) the remote console won't be able to display anything.

Please let me know if your problem is something different or you have more questions regarding this.
Thanks

creatiwit · ‎03-25-2009

Quoting - Lance Atencio (Intel)

Hello,
Glad to hear that your reboot to BIOS is working.

If I'm understanding you correctly, sounds like what you are now seeing is that when X Windows comes up on the AMT system you can't see it in the remote SOL console. This would be because SOL only supports text redirection. Once graphics enter the picture (pun intended ;) the remote console won't be able to display anything.

Please let me know if your problem is something different or you have more questions regarding this.
Thanks

That clarifies things a lot. Is SOL text redirection based on a driver that the kernel loads, or is it like normal serial port redirection. As I am trying to capture bootlogs I was hoping it would capture the entire log and not after the driver gets loaded.

Also, can sol be used for remote debugs ?

Lance_A_Intel · ‎03-25-2009

SOL in AMT is running on software in the Manageability Engine within the chipset. I would recommend looking at the Redirection Library Design Guide in the DOCS folder of the AMT SDK. Since you are using Linux you will probably also want to look at http://www.openamt.org/ for drivers and tools.

I believe Andy has answered your question on debugging over SOL here.

prasannaK · ‎03-31-2009

I pretty much have the original issue - I would like to use BIOS -> SOL but am unable to find out how to do it. SOL client (amtterm/ubuntu) connects but nothing shows up.

I have the DQ45CB board, in SMB mode.

Gael_H_Intel · ‎04-01-2009

Quoting - prasannaK

I pretty much have the original issue - I would like to use BIOS -> SOL but am unable to find out how to do it. SOL client (amtterm/ubuntu) connects but nothing shows up.

I have the DQ45CB board, in SMB mode.

Hi PrasannaK,
We are going to need more information about your environment, such as, what tool are you using to do a SOL session? If you are using the DTK(also make sure you have the most current version), there are some terminal settings in the menus that you may need to play with. Make sure both SOL and IDER are enabled in your bios. What version of AMT does your system have?

As you are running Linux, you may want to check out the http://www.openamt.org website - their is a forum there thatmay be able to handle your linux questions better than we can.

Gael

RBens2 · ‎04-01-2009

Quoting - creatiwit

I am trying to use AMT and Serial-Over-Lan. I can connect to the remote machine send reboot commands etc. But I cannot get it to reboot to BIOS or display anything on the client side terminal. the remote machine is a Thinkpad t400

Hi Creatiwit,

The SOL port looks just like a 16450 COM port installed on the PCI bus. You must configure Ubuntu to talk to SOL just as you would to tell it to redirect information onto a standard COM port connected to a dumb terminal. The SOL port does exist throughout the boot process, but the OS has to be configured to take advantage of it. I hope that this helps.

Roger

Ajay_M_Intel · ‎04-01-2009

Quoting - rogerb

Hi Creatiwit,

The SOL port looks just like a 16450 COM port installed on the PCI bus. You must configure Ubuntu to talk to SOL just as you would to tell it to redirect information onto a standard COM port connected to a dumb terminal. The SOL port does exist throughout the boot process, but the OS has to be configured to take advantage of it. I hope that this helps.

Roger

Thank You rogerb for your response. Appreciate it!

I am always happy to see our community users sharing their experience. Thanks for setting a great example. I wanted to make sure we recognize your effort.

Ajay Mungara

Manageabilility Community Manager

prasannaK · ‎04-02-2009

Quoting - rogerb

Hi Creatiwit,

The SOL port looks just like a 16450 COM port installed on the PCI bus. You must configure Ubuntu to talk to SOL just as you would to tell it to redirect information onto a standard COM port connected to a dumb terminal. The SOL port does exist throughout the boot process, but the OS has to be configured to take advantage of it. I hope that this helps.

Roger

Gael, Roger,

My issue is more that I want to see the BIOS, and not the boot process. I guess I need a "BIOS redirect to serial" option on the BIOS itself for this. I'm getting the second serial port in Ubuntu without any issue.

I'm using "amtterm" which connects up just fine, but of course without the BIOS redirect, nothing will show up? The board is an original Intel DQ45CB, which is why I posted here :)

RBens2 · ‎04-02-2009

Hi prasannak,

The SOL redirection of the BIOS setup screen should be automatic. When you make a remote control command and tell the BIOS to boot to Setup, you specify that you want a SOL session at the same time. The BIOS should then redirect all of the text in the Setup out to the SOL port. That's all you have to do. However, you do need to have SOL enabled in the MEBx, so check to make sure that SOL is enabled in your MEBx.

Regards,
Roger

Gael_H_Intel · ‎04-02-2009

Quoting - prasannaK

Gael, Roger,

My issue is more that I want to see the BIOS, and not the boot process. I guess I need a "BIOS redirect to serial" option on the BIOS itself for this. I'm getting the second serial port in Ubuntu without any issue.

I'm using "amtterm" which connects up just fine, but of course without the BIOS redirect, nothing will show up? The board is an original Intel DQ45CB, which is why I posted here :)

Probably ought to make sure IDER is enabled too. Of course if prasannaK is using the DTK, I don't believe you can even take controlunless SOL is enabled.

prasannaK · ‎04-03-2009

Quoting - rogerb

Hi prasannak,

The SOL redirection of the BIOS setup screen should be automatic. When you make a remote control command and tell the BIOS to boot to Setup, you specify that you want a SOL session at the same time. The BIOS should then redirect all of the text in the Setup out to the SOL port. That's all you have to do. However, you do need to have SOL enabled in the MEBx, so check to make sure that SOL is enabled in your MEBx.

Regards,
Roger

Phew!!

The tool that I use, amtterm (http://linux.die.net/man/7/amt-howto) works fine. The amttool which sends commands to the AMT client however had some issue with sending " 'SpecialCommandParameter' => 0x8 " (for booting into BIOSsetup and "'OEMparameters' => 1" (for BIOS->SOL)

Once I did that, Voila! I had the BIOS on the screen. Now I need to figure out and submit a patch to that guy!

Thanks for the guidance!

Gael_H_Intel · ‎04-03-2009

Quoting - prasannaK

Phew!!

The tool that I use, amtterm (http://linux.die.net/man/7/amt-howto) works fine. The amttool which sends commands to the AMT client however had some issue with sending " 'SpecialCommandParameter' => 0x8 " (for booting into BIOSsetup and "'OEMparameters' => 1" (for BIOS->SOL)

Once I did that, Voila! I had the BIOS on the screen. Now I need to figure out and submit a patch to that guy!

Thanks for the guidance!

We are glad that you got it working! And thanks to Rogerb for the advice!
--Gael