SUMMARY: Loss of console causing crashes:

From: Jeff Zabek (jeff@WebEx.com)
Date: Tue Jun 06 2000 - 20:38:59 CDT


Hi managers,

Thanks to all the people who helped:

Jonathan Jackson <jon@actioni.net>, "Eric S. Bryant"
<esbryan@biw.com>, Len Rose <len@netsys.com>, Changa Anderson
<canderson@sitesmith.com>, "Celeste Stokely" <celeste@stokely.com>,
Bill Hathaway <wdh@perfectorder.com>, Mike van der Velden
<mvanderv@redback.com>, Carlo Musante <carlo@ucomm.wayne.edu>, Clinton
Nichols <clinton@adexchange.com>, Dan Sweet
<sweet@qiclab.scn.rain.com>, "Donelle, Charles"
<Charles.Donelle@microcell.ca>, Vince Hoang <azrael@pe.net>, Adrian
Saidac <adrian.saidac@now-online.com>, Artur Shnayder
<artur@cgen.com>, Geoffrey Press <GeoffreyP@tforce.com.au>,
"Wilkinson, Daniel" <Daniel.Wilkinson@capgemini.co.uk>, John Malick
<john@starinc.com>, Sanjeev Gooneratne <sanjeev@iwon.com>, and Stefan
Voss <stefan@terradata.de>.

The general response suggested one or more of these solutions: turn
the key on the system to the "secure" mode, which makes the system
ignore breaks; buy a terminal or terminal server (NT sucks); use "kbd
-a disable" to disable break signals at the OS level; use "kbd -a
alternate" to make the break sequence be ~^b instead of the standard
break.

The original problem:

I am having a problem with servers crashing due to loss of the
console. Here's the scenario:

Server is an E4500. Console is a Windows NT PC which I can connect to
via pcAnywhere, with a serial cable and null modem adapter connected
from COM1 of the PC to serial port A on the E4500. I use terminal
emulation software (Hyperterminal or CRT) to connect to the COM port
on the Windows box and this accesses the console port of the E4500 so
I can work directly from it. Problem is that if the NT box crashes or
if the cable somehow gets yanked from it, the E4500 crashes. I have
experienced problems before which were similar to this, where the Sun
box would jump to the boot PROM, but nothing quite like this.

-- 
Jeff Zabek, Solaris Systems Administrator, Hosted Services
WebEx -- http://www.webex.com/ -- Email Jeff@WebEx.com
100 Rose Orchard Way, San Jose, California  95134
Phone (408) 435-5723; Fax (408) 435-7227; Cell (408) 420-6334



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