Modified /etc/ttys, persistent?

[guest16985]

Hi, I'm running OPNsense 17.7.11 on a 4-port QOTOM J1900 box. This particular piece of hardware does not have a serial port for console access. So, I added a cheap USB-to-Serial port adapter and added the following line to /etc/ttys:

ttyU0   "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"   vt100   on secure

Then I had init reread the file using "kill -HUP 1". Now I've got getty running on the USB serial port and everything works great. However, what I'm wondering now is how persistent is this file? Will it be overwritten on upgrades? If so, which type of upgrades will present a problem? Major versions? Minor versions? Something else?

Thanks!

[franco]

Hi there,

No, /etc/tty is a very sensitive file so we rewrite it during GUI configuration (System: Settings: Administration) and restore it during boot to prevent a missing / faulty file from giving you access to the system.

However, your settings should be easy to emulate on the System: Settings: Administration page, choose serial as secondary console, set speed and that should be it.


Cheers,
Franco

[guest16985]

I tried that, but the default settings seem to use /dev/ttyu0 instead of /dev/ttyU0, which is how my USB serial port shows up, thus, it doesn't work.

[franco]

Ah, this explains it. We need to add a feature for that:

https://github.com/opnsense/core/issues/2026

Still, you could patch your modified line into:

https://github.com/opnsense/core/blob/master/src/etc/rc.subr.d/recover#L161

But that will be overwritten on firmware updates until the feature is added (likely a checkbox). This won't make 18.1, as we are preparing the first release candidate now.


Cheers,
Franco