SUMMARY: V880 serial console hung

Something of a non-summary here...

> We have a v880 with a serial console plugged into ttya. RSC has never been
> configured on this box.
>
> Suddenly the serial console is dead. We can see output, but can't actually
> type on it. Cables, etc., have all been checked. We're about to muck
> around
> with the OBP settings (from the running OS), and then we'll be reduced to
> yanking the RSC card to reset everything. This is in the middle of a tight
> outage schedule for DST patches.
>
> If anyone knows any magic, let me know.

Well, we never did get the serial console back. In the end we applied the
RSC packages, switched the input-device and output-device in the OBP, and
configured a user, so that the RSC became our working console. It's now
looking like the actual serial port may be dead on the system board.
Special thanks to Sun's support line for ONCE AGAIN screwing up our
contract information, and telling us that this machine is on a cancelled
contract (It's not).

Here's a summary of all of the excellent suggestions which unfortunately
didn't work in our case:

1) Restart the ttymon daemon. I failed to mention that this problem was
   consistent at the OBP as well as the running OS, and persisted through
   a reboot.
2) Check the input-device and output-device. They were set to keyboard and
   screen respectively, which should (and did--and does on our other v880s)
   drop down to ttya in the absence of said devices.
3) Check the tty settings. They were still at the bog-standard 9600/8/N/1,
   as was the console server.
4) Try another port on the console server. Did that, didn't help.
5) Try ttyb. Didn't do that at all, as I'd need a splitter cable or at
   the least a custom pin-out adaptor.
6) Plug in a keyboard and monitor, and reset. Did that, and ended up
   getting garbage on the screen, no response from the keyboard, nothing
   at all on the serial console, and a machine that wouldn't boot! Truly
   bizarre...
7) Check the cables, adaptors, etc. Replaced everything in the chain
   except for the actual system board, all to no avail.

At this point, we have a console via the RSC, and also a significantly
updated OBP firmware. I believe we're going to kill ttymon and test the
ttya serial port, and then get Sun in to fix the hardware if that's what
turns out to be the issue.

Thanks for the help folks.
Colin
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