I’ve a few kvm guest servers, which I’ve been accessing using vnc – but this is a bit of a pain (getting port forwarding setup etc). Host and guests run Debian Squeeze with Grub2 installed/in use.
So, here’s how to do the ‘virsh console ‘ thing …
- Edit /etc/default/grub, specify
GRUB_TERMINAL=console GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="text console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8"
- Run update-grub
- Edit /etc/inittab and enable ttyS0 for logins.
- Reboot
- ‘virsh console servername’ on the kvm host.
The libvirt config files I have already have the appropriate bits in them –
<serial type='pty'><target port='0'/></serial> <console type='pty'><target type='serial' port='0'/></console>
3. Edit /etc/inittab and enable ttyS0 for logins.
OR
If you have a brand new ubuntu and lacks of inittab,
– go to /etc/init/
– copy tty1.conf to ttyS0.conf
– edit it to start getty en ttyS0 dev instead of tty1
On systemd systems, you may want to enable serial-getty@ttyS0.service. If you previously had the non-serial console getty@ttyS0.service ative, disable it – both being active would act like two ttys reacting to your input rendering a login via console basically impossible.
The article is short and good (exactly what I like) – which is why I’m adding to it o/