On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 03:32:30AM +0000, void wrote: > On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 08:16:33PM +0100, Martin Husemann wrote: > > Serial is simple if you have a mainboard with one. > > > > Boot the USB installer and stop the countdown. Connect a serial (e.g. USB) > > cable to another machine and open a terminal there. Use e.g. 115200 8n1 as > > settings and enable logging. > > > > Now on the console of the booting machine enter something like: > > > > consdev com0,115200 > ... > Is there a modification I can make to the NetBSD install image that tells > it to use only the serial for console from the outset? The context of what > you wrote seems to suggest booting with a screen then stopping the > countdown. In my case there would be no screen at all.
Yes, assuming you can modify install media, you could add a line like Martin's example to the top of /boot.cfg and that moves the console to com0; e.g. on my serial console system the /boot.cfg file looks like: consdev=com0,115200 menu=Boot normally:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot menu=Boot single user:rndseed /etc/entropy-file;boot -s menu=Drop to boot prompt:prompt default=1 timeout=5 clear=1 Other options are possible, see boot.cfg(5) for reference. Note that the default entropy file path is /var/db/entropy-file but I have a separate /var/ partition on this system. Cheers, sr.
