Monitor Update via Terminal on Com Port

[JDabbs]

I'm running a mini-PC headless, as a result if  I get any errors during an update I can't see them. Given the location of the PC it's not really feasible to attach a monitor to it in situ so I need to power down the PC & move it before hooking up a monitor, thus loosing any messages that were displayed.   I have set up a RS232-Ethernet server so I can view the terminal output of the comport com terminal remotely.

However, I have a quick question, when I open a terminal, I see the same screen as if I attach a monitor directly to the Opnsense PC which shows basic LAN & WAN parameters then the 0 – 13 menu options, including 8) Shell etc.

My question is am I better laving the terminal on the first screen showing the menu options while performing the update (via the GUI) or going into a shell session? I'm not sure which session will show the most useful information & any potential error messages.

My thoughts are leave it on the first screen without going into the shell but would welcome any advice.

My goal in this setup is to be able to see any errors or issues or even re-boot in the event that the web interface and SSH are unavailable.

After a few updates I should be able to figure this out myself and will post back my results but any guidance welcome. 

PS I have considered getting ethernet – KVM but haven't been able to find anything reliable at a reasonable price. Once the JetKVM is available I may get one of those but they aren't available yet so this is a temporary solution. 

[franco]

Hi,

A few small points to consider:

Seeing the console or being able to attach is useful in the worst case. When things could go fine, you can use the GUI or SSH console to initiate the update.

The major upgrades reboot 2 times to apply the new base system and packages cleanly and ABI-safe. A reboot where the box doesn't come back is typically where the console comes in handy to diagnose. Perhaps the update is still running. Some are guilty of power-cycling a running upgrade because it took 30 minutes or more but it takes as long as it takes.

The whole point of being able to access the console (or monitor) is so that you can recover with install media in a case where the system will not be operational, because only then you can proceed to immediate recovery (and likely still grab your config via import from the old install).


Cheers,
Franco