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General Discussion / Support question: opnsense requires input when booting
« on: August 03, 2023, 04:02:23 pm »
Hi guys,
Hopefully someone can provide some insight for me on a minor issue that has me stumped. I'm not all that familiar with bsd (only opnsense) but pretty experienced with Linux, and I thought I knew grub well enough.
So here's the issue. I run a mini PC appliance from AliExpress. Celeron n5105, 16gb ddr4, 4x i226v, rj45 console. I run the device headless. Uefi boot, but device type or method doesn't seem to matter. I keep my rj45 serial to USB cable plugged in 24/7 through the wall to my living room by where I usually use my laptop.
When I reboot the machine, it boots straight up with no input required if my console cable is connected to my laptop and laptop is on. If laptop is off/asleep, the boot hangs waiting for user input. I have to open my laptop, open a putty connection, and press enter. Then the boot continues. There's no indicator in dmesg of course as the boot process doesn't start until I hit enter. If I plug in my portable 7inch HDMI LCD, it also boots straight up. Basically, anything that would let me see the prompt, keeps it from prompting 😂 I tried using an HDMI dummy adapter but it doesn't make a difference. I tried leaving my wireless kb USB dongle plugged in, doesn't make a difference. This bios has a ton of things but lacks the basic "wait for input, continue on all errors, etc" option.
I honestly can't tell if the POST is waiting for input or the bootloader. When I press enter, it immediately begins the boot without showing the bootloader menu, so it leads me to believe it's actually bootloader config that's waiting for the input. My loader.conf and menu config are unmodified. Actually the entire /boot is unmodified except whatever opnsense has changed. This install was a fresh install of 23.1. I haven't found an answer from searching, but surely someone knows this and it's a really simple change.
Fwiw, I don't mind disabling vga console if that would fix it. I only use the serial console (console redirect is also enable and configured properly in bios).
Side note: occasionally, connecting over console shows nothing on the screen and accepts no input. Just the blinky cursor. To fix it I just reboot the system, which then shows the shutdown sequence on the console and accepts input once reset, no idea what causes that.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Hopefully someone can provide some insight for me on a minor issue that has me stumped. I'm not all that familiar with bsd (only opnsense) but pretty experienced with Linux, and I thought I knew grub well enough.
So here's the issue. I run a mini PC appliance from AliExpress. Celeron n5105, 16gb ddr4, 4x i226v, rj45 console. I run the device headless. Uefi boot, but device type or method doesn't seem to matter. I keep my rj45 serial to USB cable plugged in 24/7 through the wall to my living room by where I usually use my laptop.
When I reboot the machine, it boots straight up with no input required if my console cable is connected to my laptop and laptop is on. If laptop is off/asleep, the boot hangs waiting for user input. I have to open my laptop, open a putty connection, and press enter. Then the boot continues. There's no indicator in dmesg of course as the boot process doesn't start until I hit enter. If I plug in my portable 7inch HDMI LCD, it also boots straight up. Basically, anything that would let me see the prompt, keeps it from prompting 😂 I tried using an HDMI dummy adapter but it doesn't make a difference. I tried leaving my wireless kb USB dongle plugged in, doesn't make a difference. This bios has a ton of things but lacks the basic "wait for input, continue on all errors, etc" option.
I honestly can't tell if the POST is waiting for input or the bootloader. When I press enter, it immediately begins the boot without showing the bootloader menu, so it leads me to believe it's actually bootloader config that's waiting for the input. My loader.conf and menu config are unmodified. Actually the entire /boot is unmodified except whatever opnsense has changed. This install was a fresh install of 23.1. I haven't found an answer from searching, but surely someone knows this and it's a really simple change.
Fwiw, I don't mind disabling vga console if that would fix it. I only use the serial console (console redirect is also enable and configured properly in bios).
Side note: occasionally, connecting over console shows nothing on the screen and accepts no input. Just the blinky cursor. To fix it I just reboot the system, which then shows the shutdown sequence on the console and accepts input once reset, no idea what causes that.
Thanks in advance for your help!