rcons - Remote Console
See rcons manpage for more information.
Most enterprise servers do not have video adapters installed with the machine and often do not provide a method for attaching a physical monitor/keyboard/mouse to get the display output. For this purpose xCAT can assist the system administrator to view the console over a “Serial-over-LAN” (SOL) connection through the BMC.
Configure the correct console management by modifying the node definition:
For OpenPOWER, IPMI managed server:
chdef -t node -o <noderange> cons=ipmiFor OpenPOWER, OpenBMC managed servers:
chdef -t node -o <noderange> cons=openbmc
Open a console to compute1:
rcons compute1
Note
The keystroke ctrl+e c . will disconnect you from the console.
Troubleshooting
General
xCAT has been integrated with 3 kinds of console server service, they are
conserver [Deprecated]
rcons command relies on one of them. The conserver and goconserver
packages should have been installed with xCAT as they are part of the xCAT
dependency packages. If you want to try confluent,
see confluent server.
For systemd based systems, goconserver is used by default. If you are
having problems seeing the console, try the following.
Make sure
goconserveris configured by runningmakegocons.Check if
goconserveris up and runningsystemctl status goconserver.service
If
goconserveris not running, start the service using:systemctl start goconserver.service
Try
makegocons -q [<node>]to verify if the node has been registered.Invoke the console again:
rcons <node>
More details for goconserver, see goconserver documentation.
[Deprecated] If conserver is used, try the following.
Make sure
conserveris configured by runningmakeconservercf.Check if
conserveris up and running[sysvinit] service conserver status [systemd] systemctl status conserver.serviceIf
conserveris not running, start the service using:[sysvinit] service conserver start [systemd] systemctl start conserver.serviceInvoke the console again:
rcons <node>