Fedora xen - Dec 2007 - inittab corrupted/serial console broken on Xen-ified kernel?

[this is a message that I sent to xen-users yesterday, but I guess this 
list may be better - this looks like a problem either in Xen, or in the 
packaging of 2.6.21-2952.fc8xen].

I''ve just installed Fedora 8 / xen-2.6.21 on a headless server, but I
can''t get a serial console login on the Xen version of the kernel.

1 - If I boot into 2.6.23.8-63.fc8, the serial console login works as
expected

2 - If I boot into 2.6.21-2952.fc8xen instead, I get all the expected
serial output up to the end of the boot process, but no login.

When I boot into the xen kernel, inittab is modified, and the
modification removes the agetty on ttyS0. If I compare the old inittab
with the new inittab, I get:

46,47c46
< # co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty xvc0 96 9600 vt100-nav
< co:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 115200 vt100
---
 >  co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty xvc0 96 9600 vt100-nav

In other words, a commented entry was uncommented, and the following
line was deleted, which explains why I can''t log in. This is so bizarre
that it almost looks like it was done on purpose (was it ? :))

Anyone seen this? Any ideas?

Thanks -

Evan

Evan Lavelle (sa212+fcxen@cyconix.com) said: 
> 2 - If I boot into 2.6.21-2952.fc8xen instead, I get all the expected
> serial output up to the end of the boot process, but no login.
>
> When I boot into the xen kernel, inittab is modified, and the
> modification removes the agetty on ttyS0. If I compare the old inittab
> with the new inittab, I get:
>
> 46,47c46
> < # co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty xvc0 96 9600 vt100-nav
> < co:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 115200 vt100
> ---
> >  co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty xvc0 96 9600 vt100-nav
>
> In other words, a commented entry was uncommented, and the following
> line was deleted, which explains why I can''t log in. This is so
bizarre
> that it almost looks like it was done on purpose (was it ? :))
>
> Anyone seen this? Any ideas?
Xen takes over the serial port; it''s modifying the line to point
to the xen console device.

Bill

Bill Nottingham wrote:
>> 46,47c46
>> < # co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty xvc0 96 9600 vt100-nav
>> < co:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 115200 vt100
>> ---
>>>  co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty xvc0 96 9600 vt100-nav
>> In other words, a commented entry was uncommented, and the following
>> line was deleted, which explains why I can''t log in. This is
so bizarre
>> that it almost looks like it was done on purpose (was it ? :))
>>
>> Anyone seen this? Any ideas?
> 
> Xen takes over the serial port; it''s modifying the line to point
> to the xen console device.
Interesting. So the "Serial Console Login configuration" in the manual
(v3.0 User''s Manual, p13) is wrong? The modified inittab is also 
incorrect; an error message appears on the serial output, and in the 
system logs, every 5 minutes ("Dec 14 17:52:35 thor init: Id "co"
respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes").

How do I get a remote login over a serial line? Is this still possible?

Thanks -

Evan

Evan Lavelle (sa212+fcxen@cyconix.com) said: 
>> Xen takes over the serial port; it''s modifying the line to
point
>> to the xen console device.
>
> Interesting. So the "Serial Console Login configuration" in the
manual
> (v3.0 User''s Manual, p13) is wrong? The modified inittab is also
incorrect;
> an error message appears on the serial output, and in the system logs, 
> every 5 minutes ("Dec 14 17:52:35 thor init: Id "co"
respawning too fast:
> disabled for 5 minutes").
Yeah, the extra ''96'' seems wrong. Can you file a bug against
kudzu?
> How do I get a remote login over a serial line? Is this still possible?
How are you booting xen? What''s the command line?

Bill