Bug 1194891

Summary: yast2 should configure grub to use serial console in addition
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE Tumbleweed Reporter: Ludwig Nussel <lnussel>
Component: InstallationAssignee: YaST Team <yast-internal>
Status: CONFIRMED --- QA Contact: Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: dgonzalez, jreidinger, lnussel
Version: Current   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Other   
URL: https://trello.com/c/2fuQLvGO
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description Ludwig Nussel 2022-01-19 13:17:24 UTC 
When installing with a terminal command line of eg "console=ttyS0 console=tty" the kernel outputs to ttyS0 as well as the regular graphics console. The latter is the default and primary output. The setting is carried over to the installed system where systemd automatically launches a getty on ttyS0 then.

What's missing is grub. Grub too can output to the graphical console as well as serial at the same time. Yast only looks at the last console= setting though so misses to configure grub for multiple outputs:
https://github.com/yast/yast-bootloader/blob/9ef2bc7486bf70d9cd03a4f17cb69efe0d18246f/src/lib/bootloader/serial_console.rb#L47


If several console parameters are present, grub can be configured to also have multiple outputs, like this:
GRUB_TERMINAL="gfxterm serial"
Comment 1 Josef Reidinger 2022-01-19 13:29:48 UTC 
Ludwig - if you check bug why we use just the last one, it is because of https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=870514#c2 So does it mean it is no longer valid and we should check for any possible serial console?
Comment 2 Ludwig Nussel 2022-01-19 15:26:02 UTC 
The original issue might have been that yast configured grub to *exclusively* listen on ttyS0. What I'm suggesting is to have grub do *both* serial and graphical at the same time. Grub accepts input from both channels at the same time. Ie that would sill allow openQA to move around in the graphical menu and edit the command line there.
Comment 3 Josef Reidinger 2022-01-19 20:19:36 UTC 
OK, then it makes sense for me to properly configure grub terminal and set serial console in grub.