consdef File

Purpose

Enables asynchronous tty devices to be console candidates at system boot when no console device is defined or available.

Description

The /etc/consdef file enables tty devices such as terminals and modems to be chosen as the console device. When the console device is undefined, the system displays a message on all natively attached graphics displays and the tty on native serial port S1. The console device is undefined when:

The system is first installed and started.
The console definition has been deleted from the ODM database.
The console device has been physically removed from the system.

If any of these conditions occur, the system displays the following message:

******* Please define the System Console. *******
Type a Number and press <Enter> to use this terminal as the system console.

For high function terminals (HFTs)graphics displays, the Number variable refers to a function key. For asynchronous ttys, this variable is a number.

The selected item becomes the system console. To choose a non-default tty device as the system console, you must first configure the /etc/consdef file. This file contains stanzas that define various console attributes. Each line, or entry, in a stanza must take the form of Attribute=Value, and the line must not exceed 80 characters. The following attributes must be defined for each terminal device:

Attribute	Definition
connection	Identifies the type of tty interface. Valid values are `rs232` and `rs422`.
location	Specifies the location code of the terminal. Location codes of `00-00-S1-00` or `00-00-S2-00` indicate that the tty device is attached to the S1 or S2 serial port, respectively. Any other location code indicates the tty device is attached to an adapter card other than the standard I/O planar. You can display valid location values with the lsdev -C \| grep tty command.

You can also specify other terminal attributes such as speed, bpc, stops, parity, and term. If you do not define these attributes, the system uses the default values stored in the ODM database. The consdef file contains a sample stanza for the S1 port. To enable this stanza, or parts of it, remove the comment delimiters (#) from each applicable line.

Examples

To display the console selection message on the ttys attached to the S1 and S2 ports:

ALTTTY:
   connection=rs232
   location=00-00-S1-00
   speed=9600
   bpc=8
   stops=1
   parity=none
   term=ibm3163

ALTTTY:
   connection=rs232
   location=00-00-S2-00
   speed=9600
   bpc=8
   stops=1
   parity=none
   term=ibm3163

Note: For backward compatibility, the ALTTTY: keyword is not required for the first entry.

Files

Item	Description
/etc/consdef	Specifies the path of the consdef file.
/dev/console	Provides access to the system console.