Fun with FreeBSD Serial Consoles
Thursday, July 12th, 2007
Like most whom are geeky enough to run a home server, I run my server headless (no keyboard or display attached). This is convenient 99% of the time (namely for everything excluding operating system upgrades or occasions where you firewall yourself out of your own machine while tweaking IPFW rules)…
Traditionally I avoided this problem via a PS/2 KVM switch between my server and desktop PC. That solution met it’s end when I ousted my last desktop PC. In order to continue with the KVM style setup I would need to find a KVM equipped with USB keyboard and mouse ports and both VGA and DVI display ports, which apparently is not easy to come by short of some very high end setups.
It seems more often then not, the old fashioned strategies yield the greatest success. I opted for a NULL Modem cable (1969 called, they want their RS-232 back) and a Keyspan USA-19HS USB to Serial adapter for the Mac Mini.
