man pages section 1M: System Administration Commands

consadm(1m)

Name

consadm– select or display devices used as auxiliary console devices

Synopsis

/usr/sbin/consadm

/usr/sbin/consadm [-a device. . .] [-p]

/usr/sbin/consadm [-d device. . .] [-p]

/usr/sbin/consadm [-p]

Description

consadm selects the hardware device or devices to be used as auxiliary console devices, or displays the current device. Only superusers are allowed to make or display auxiliary console device selections.

Auxiliary console devices receive copies of console messages, and can be used as the console during single user mode. In particular, they receive kernel messages and messages directed to /dev/sysmsg. On Solaris x86 based systems they can also be used for interaction with the bootstrap.

By default, selecting a display device to be used as an auxiliary console device selects that device for the duration the system remains up. If the administrator needs the selection to persist across reboots the -p option can be specified.

consadm runs a daemon in the background, monitoring auxiliary console devices. Any devices that are disconnected (hang up, lose carrier) are removed from the auxiliary console device list, though not from the persistent list. While auxiliary console devices may have been removed from the device list receiving copies of console messages, those messages will always continue to be displayed by the default console device.

The daemon will not run if it finds there are not any auxiliary devices configured to monitor. Likewise, after the last auxiliary console is removed, the daemon will shut itself down. Therefore the daemon persists for only as long as auxiliary console devices remain active.

See eeprom(1M) for instructions on assigning an auxiliary console device as the system console.

Options

The following options are supported:

-a device

Adds device to the list of auxiliary console devices. Specify device as the path name to the device or devices to be added to the auxiliary console device list.

-d device

Removes device from the list of auxiliary console devices. Specify device as the path name to the device or devices to be removed from the auxiliary console device list.

-p

Prints the list of auxiliary consoles that will be auxiliary across reboots.

When invoked with the -a or -d options , tells the application to make the change persist across reboot.

Examples

Example 1 Adding to the list of devices that will receive console messages

The following command adds /dev/term/a to the list of devices that will receive console messages.

example# consadm -a /dev/term/a

Example 2 Removing from the list of devices that will receive console messages

The following command removes /dev/term/a from the list of devices that will receive console messages. This includes removal from the persistent list.

example# consadm -d -p /dev/term/a

Example 3 Printing the list of devices selected as auxiliary console devices

The following command prints the name or names of the device or devices currently selected as auxiliary console devices.

example# consadm

Environment Variables

See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of consadm: LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

Exit Status

The following exit values are returned:

0: Successful completion.
>0: An error occurred.

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE	ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Availability	SUNWcsu
Stability Level	Evolving

Notes

Auxiliary console devices are not usable for kadb or firmware I/O, do not receive panic messages, and do not receive output directed to /dev/console.

The consadm service is managed by the service management facility, smf(5), under the service identifier:

svc:/system/consadm

Administrative actions on this service, such as enabling, disabling, or requesting restart, can be performed using svcadm(1M). The service's status can be queried using the svcs(1) command.

SunOS 5.10 Last Revised 27 Oct 2004