Re: USB-serial adapter suggestions needed

[I have a little internet access for a bit again --but
not for even the rest of my night time.]

On Jan 5, 2024, at 08:15, bob prohaska <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 09:41:06AM +0000, Marcin Cieslak wrote:
>> On Sat, 30 Dec 2023, bob prohaska wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sat, Dec 30, 2023 at 07:05:32PM +0000, Marcin Cieslak wrote:
>>>> are you running with the default /etc/ttys ?
>>>> 
>>> Yes, I am.
>>> 
>>>> If yes,
>>>> 
>>>> can you please edit /etc/ttys on the serial port
>>>> side as follows (as root)
>>>> 
>>>> # ed /etc/ttys 2216
>>>> /ttyu0
>>>> ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire" vt100 onifconsole secure
>>>> .s/3wire/3wire.9600/
>>>> .
>>>> ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire.9600" vt100 onifconsole secure
>>>> w
>>>> q
>>> 
>>> Couple of questions:
>>> 
>>> Is it necessary to use ed? I'm less bad with vi 8-)
>>> 
>>> Should I plan to change tip settings once FreeBSD boots?
>> 
>> /ttyu0
>> .s/3wire/3wire.9600/
>> .
>> w
>> q
>> 
>> are the commands you need to enter.
>> 
>> Please also adjust tip(1) line speed to 9600.
> 
> It's been discovered that turning off powerd on both the terminal
> server host and the console host  seems to eliminate the disconnect 
> problem entirely. The necessity of eliminating powerd on the terminal
> server is uncertain, I did it in the spirit of thoroughness.

I'd next try having powerd disabled only on the terminal server
pelorus and then checking for getting a failure.

Last I would try instead having www.zefox.org <http://www.zefox.org/> be the only one
of the two with powerd disabled.

I expect that having powerd disabled just on pelorus will prove
sufficient and that having powerd disabled just on www.zefox.org <http://www.zefox.org/>
will not prove sufficient.

I also request to again list the exact content of the two
config.txt files --and again every time they are changed during
this investigation.

> With powerd off, the host www.zefox.org ran a complete buildworld, 
> buildkernel, installworld, installkernel and poudriere jail update
> over about five days without a single loss of communication from
> workstation to serial console via the terminal server pelorus and 
> usb-serial adapter. The serial connection was initiated at 115200
> baud and remained clean the entire time.  
> 
> On www.zefox.org /etc/ttys still contains
> ttyu0   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
> ttyu1   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
> ttyu2   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
> ttyu3   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
> Config.txt contains dtoverlay=disable-bt and uname -a now reports
> FreeBSD www.zefox.org 15.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 15.0-CURRENT #104 main-n267335-499e84e16f56: Thu Jan  4 16:42:10 PST 2024     [email protected]:/usr/obj/usr/src/arm64.aarch64/sys/GENERIC arm64
> 
> On the terminal server pelorus /etc/remote contains
> ucom:dv=/dev/cuaU0:br#115200:pa=none:
> and the command
> tip ucom 
> was used to initiate the connection. Uname -a reports
> FreeBSD pelorus 14.0-RELEASE-p4 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p4 #0 releng/14.0-n265400-4edf3b80733e: Wed Dec 27 20:21:26 PST 2023     bob@pelorus:/usr/obj/usr/src/arm64.aarch64/sys/GENERIC arm64
> 
> To all appearances, the troublemaker is powerd.

I'd word it that powerd activity is involved --but is unlikely to
be the only activity involved in the bad interaction(s). Lack of
powerd activity (fixed rate context) likely avoids having the
interactions at issue.

> The question is 
> what to try next. A very simple experiment is to start powerd on
> www.zefox.org and repeat the build/install cycle. Alternatively,
> I could try the experiment you suggested, setting ttyu0 to 9600
> baud. Or, I could do both at the same time. Or, something else.

I do not expect the 9600 test to prove useful: systematic garbage
text would result for the text that was good with 115200 . Also
the powerd test you did tends to suggest that it is not a basic
baudrate setting issue.

> Please let me know what would be most informative. It would be 
> very desirable to use powerd, as it substantially improves 
> performance.

You also have the option of fixed-rate clocking that is faster
than FreeBSD default. This can be controlled from config.txt .

===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com