On 2014-06-29, Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote: > Dewey Hylton: > >> > I vaguely remember that at some point there was a change that >> > requires a new boot(8), otherwise a serial console won't be set >> > correctly with a new kernel. >> >> hmmm ... would this affect both pxe and locally booting bsd.rd? > > It affects both pxeboot(8) and boot(8) on disk. > >> where is this documented? > > I don't think it is explicitly documented anywhere, but this may > be pertinent: > > "Upgrades are only supported from one release to the release immediately > following it. Do not skip releases. If you got lucky skipping releases > in the past, you may not this time." >
I documented this carefully in current.html (after having been bitten by it on a couple of machines) but unfortunately this didn't make it through to the release notes. +<a name="20140214"></a> +<h3>2014/02/14 - amd64/i386 serial consoles need current bootloader</h3> +This is a reminder of a change which +<a href="http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.cvs/124092";>took place +earlier</a>: backward compatibility for learning about a serial console device +from old boot loaders was removed. +This only affects those who will be doing a <b>remote</b> upgrade <b>via serial +console</b> on <b>amd64/i386</b> who do not already have "BOOT 3.20" (amd64) +or "BOOT 3.18" (i386).<p> +The boot loader is updated as part of the normal upgrade procedure +via the install media, but users who have previously upgraded from +OpenBSD 5.2 or earlier using the "without install kernel" method on a +running system may have missed this step. +If this is the case, you can either do a ramdisk-based update to +OpenBSD 5.4 first (even if you are already running 5.4), or manually +use +<a href="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=installboot&manpath=OpenBSD+5%2e4&arch=i386";>installboot(8)</a> +<!-- XXX do not update 5.4 link above to 5.5, this needs to show the old +installboot syntax which has now changed --> +to update to boot blocks from OpenBSD 5.3 or 5.4, before attempting to +boot a 5.5 kernel or installer.
