Re: Getty stopped on rpi3 serial console serial console

On Tue, Aug 18, 2026 at 02:31:40PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote:
> On Aug 18, 2026, at 8:29 AM, bob prohaska <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> > I just noticed that an RPi3 running 
> > FreeBSD ns2.zefox.net 14.4-RELEASE-p6 FreeBSD 14.4-RELEASE-p6 GENERIC arm64 aarch64 1404000 1404000
> > has stopped putting a login prompt on the serial console.
> > 
> > Ssh logins work normally, there are no other visible anomalies,
> > uptime reports  8:25AM  up 56 days, 17:22, 2 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
> > 
> > For immediate purposes this is harmless, but might it be indicative of some
> > deeper problem? It's a binary-only installation maintained using freebsd-update.
> > 
> > Thanks for reading, and any insights.
> > 
> > bob prohaska
> > 
> > 
> 
> I have these lines in /boot/loader.conf on pi3:
> 
> boot_multicons="YES"
> boot_serial="YES"
> 
Same here:
# Multiple console (serial+efi gop) enabled.
boot_multicons="YES"
boot_serial="YES"



> See if that helps (though I don't connect anything to
> the serial line + mine run 15.x). Also check /etc/ttys
> as others have suggested. You should see a line like
> 
> ttyu0   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure

Likewise,
ttyu0   "/usr/libexec/getty 3wire"      vt100   onifconsole secure
is in /etc/ttys

There have been no intentional changes to the system in recent weeks/months,
the loss of getty on the console happened out of the blue, apparently in the
last few days. 

I suspect that rebooting will clear the difficulty, which I'll try in due
course if nothing else of interest emerges.

The serial console does still report console messages, for example logging
in via ssh and using su to become root generates a console output. 

I was mostly wondering if this might be either a bug or a hint of some
malicious activity.

Thanks to all who responded!
bob prohaska