How to start the terminal from rc.sysinit scripts

[b_senthilbe]

Hi,

I have a target board having linux(Not GUI), which boots up and doesn't give me a bash prompt. So to get a bash terminal, I always need to telnet to it. (It is starting a telnet server during bootup) Please let me know how to get the terminal in the same window where it boots. In otherwords, once the rc.sysinit completes, I need to have a bash terminal there.

The target board is connected to an other machine through serial port. I boot up the target board by giving the boot command through minicom.

Thanks

[Rubberman]

Assuming it has an RS-232 port that you want to use as a console, then in the startup script you need to enable the port for console operations. A lot of these boards that run Linux are hardwired to use a specific serial port for console operations. For example on my Debian ARM board, the linuxrc script looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
# Copyright (c) 2007, Technologic Systems.
# Copyright (c) 2010, Application Frameworks and Systems, Inc.
# All rights reserved.
#
# Checks for nfsboot file. If found, links /mnt/root to nfs share.
# If no nfsboot found, links /mnt/root to sdcard partition #4.
# symlink to /linuxrc and run "save" to use

export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/lbin:/mnt/root/bin:/mnt/root/sbin:/mnt/root/usr/bin:/mnt/root/usr/sbin:/mnt/root/usr/local/bin:/mnt/root/usr/local/sbin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib:/usr/lib
export CONSOLE=/dev/ttyAM1

mount -t proc none /proc
mount -t sysfs none /sys
mount -t tmpfs none /dev
mdev -s
mkdir /dev/pts /dev/shm
mount -t devpts none /dev/pts
mount -t tmpfs none /dev/shm

setconsole $CONSOLE
stty -F $CONSOLE ospeed 115200 > /dev/null 2>&1
hostname ts7000
.
.
.

So, I can have my laptop/workstation connected to the appropriate serial port on the target board, and as soon as it gets into the startup script, the console is redirected to the correct port and I can use it to see the rest of the boot process and use it to login and build/run stuff directly on the board.