{"id":1176,"date":"2015-02-17T14:45:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T19:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/blog\/?p=297"},"modified":"2018-02-17T14:10:01","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T19:10:01","slug":"console-mode-in-solaris-11-gnome-desktop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/2015\/02\/17\/console-mode-in-solaris-11-gnome-desktop\/","title":{"rendered":"Console Mode in Solaris 11 Gnome Desktop"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow do I open a console window in the Solaris 11 Gnome Desktop?\r\n\r\nThis question comes up occasionally- especially in my transition courses where I have administrators migrating from previous version of Solaris.\u00a0 In those versions of Solaris, administrators used the Java Desktop (Solaris 10) and the Common Desktop Environment also called\u00a0CDE (Solaris 9).\u00a0 The console window was a special window where system generated messages were displayed.\u00a0 Any messages sent to \/dev\/console<\/code> by syslogd<\/code> appeared in this window.\r\n\r\nWhen using the Gnome Desktop in Solaris 11, there is an option to open a terminal\u00a0window, but not a console\u00a0window.\u00a0\u00a0 To view the console messages from the Gnome Desktop, use these keystrokes:\r\n\r\nPress Ctrl+Alt+F1 and the screen switches out of the GUI environment into console mode\r\n
solaris console login:<\/code><\/pre>\r\nYou can switch to several different consoles by pressing Alt+F1 (F2, F6)\u00a0\u00a0 The login prompt will change for each console\r\n
solaris vt2 login:<\/code><\/pre>\r\nPress Alt F3\r\n
solaris vt3 login:<\/code><\/pre>\r\nWhen you want to return back to the Gnome Desktop environment, press Alt+F7\r\n\r\nNote:\u00a0 The Ctrl+Alt_F# also works for servers installed with the Text Installer that do not have Gnome desktop installed. When using the Text console, sometimes you want to open another console window.\u00a0 USe the Ctrl+Alt+F# to open a new console window while the other window is busy.\u00a0 It does NOT work for Putty sessions though.<\/em>\r\n\r\nRemember, the Gnome Desktop is not just for x86 users, it’s also available on the SPARC platform. \u00a0If you want more details on how to setup and access the Gnome Desktop on the SPARC platform, go to my blog entry on this topic<\/a>.\r\n
Viewing the Console During the Boot Process<\/h4>\r\nOn Solaris x86 systems, when the Gnome Desktop is installed, you don’t see the console messages displayed during the boot process. \u00a0You only see the white splash screen shown in figure 1:\r\n
\u00a0\"bootscreen\"<\/a>\r\n<\/a>Figure 1<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nYou could simply press Ctrl+Alt+F1 when you see the splash screen and the console screen will be shown. \u00a0The Ctrl+Alt+F1 toggles the screen from the GUI mode to the console mode. \u00a0 But, the system will boot in a quiescent mode and the detailed boot messages will still not be displayed.\r\n\r\nTo change the configuration, so that boot messages are displayed during the boot process, edit the GRUB menu. \u00a0 The GRUB menu can be changed either temporarily or permanently.\r\n\r\nMake a temporary change to the boot screen by pressing the “e” key when the GRUB menu is displayed during the boot process as shown in figure 2\r\n\r\n\"Grub\"<\/a>\r\n
\u00a0Figure 2<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe edit screen will open as shown in Figure 3:\r\n\r\n\"edit_grub\"<\/a>\r\n
Figure 3<\/p>\r\nChange the following line from “graphics<\/code>“:\r\n
$multiboot \/ROOT\/solaris\/@\/$kern -B console=graphics<\/strong> -B $zfs_bootfs<\/code><\/pre>\r\n
to “text<\/code>” as follows:<\/p>\r\n\r\n
$multiboot \/ROOT\/solaris\/@\/$kern -B console=text<\/strong>\u00a0-B $zfs_bootfs<\/code><\/pre>\r\nAfter making the edit, press Ctrl+x to start the boot process in text mode.\r\n\r\nBy default, the system boots in a quiescent mode. \u00a0You can specify which messages you want to view during bootup. \u00a0 Add -m verbose<\/code> \u00a0to the end of the line as shown next,\u00a0to\u00a0display all of the SMF services as they start:\r\n
$multiboot \/ROOT\/solaris\/@\/$kern -B console=text<\/strong> -B $zfs_bootfs -m verbose<\/strong><\/code><\/pre>\r\nThe following SMF messages will be displayed, showing all f the services starting up:\r\n\r\n\"m_verbose\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nAdd -v<\/code> to the end of the line to display the kernel messages, but not the SMF service messages:\r\n
$multiboot \/ROOT\/solaris\/@\/$kern -B console=text<\/strong> -B $zfs_bootfs -v<\/strong><\/code><\/pre>\r\n\"kernel_msgs\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nOr view ALL of the boot messages by specifying both options as follows:\r\n
$multiboot \/ROOT\/solaris\/@\/$kern -B console=text<\/strong> -B $zfs_bootfs -m verbose -v<\/strong><\/code><\/pre>\r\nTo make a permanent change to the boot process on the x86 platform, you’ll need to use the bootadm<\/code> utility from the command line to modify the GRUB menu. \u00a0First display the current GRUB configuration as follows:\r\n
# bootadm list-menu<\/strong><\/code> the location of the boot loader configuration files is: \/rpool\/boot\/grub<\/code> default 0<\/code> console graphics<\/code> timeout 30<\/code> 0 Oracle Solaris 11.1<\/code><\/pre>\r\nIn the above example, the GRUB menu has one entry, entry 0<\/code> with a title of “Oracle Solaris 11.1.\" \u00a0 \u00a0<\/code>To permanently change entry 0<\/code> in the GRUB menu so that it boots in verbose mode, type:\r\n
# bootadm change-entry -i 0 kargs=\"-v\"<\/strong><\/code><\/pre>\r\nAlso, you need to change the console to text<\/code> as follows:\r\n
# bootadm set-menu console=text<\/strong><\/code><\/pre>\r\nNow, display the change:\r\n
# bootadm list-menu<\/strong><\/code> the location of the boot loader configuration files is: \/rpool\/boot\/grub<\/code> default 0<\/code> console text<\/code> timeout 30<\/code> 0 Oracle Solaris 11.1<\/code><\/pre>\r\nThe above list shows that the console is set to text<\/code>, but it does not display the -v<\/code> option which was also set. \u00a0 You’ll need to list the details for entry 0<\/code> in the GRUB menu to see the boot string for that entry as follows:\r\n
# bootadm list-menu \"Oracle Solaris 11.1\"<\/strong><\/code> the location of the boot loader configuration files is: \/rpool\/boot\/grub<\/code> title: Oracle Solaris 11.1<\/code> kernel: \/platform\/i86pc\/kernel\/amd64\/unix<\/code> kernel arguments: -v<\/code> boot archive: \/platform\/i86pc\/amd64\/boot_archive<\/code> bootfs: rpool\/ROOT\/solaris<\/code><\/pre>\r\nNow, every\u00a0time the system boots, you’ll see the kernel boot messages displayed. \u00a0After the system boots, the Gnome Desktop login will be displayed.\r\n\r\nI hope this helps out and if you have questions, please submit them in the comment section at the bottom of this page. \u00a0Be sure to check out one of my online courses <\/a>too!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do I open a console window in the Solaris 11 Gnome Desktop? This question comes up occasionally- especially in my transition courses where I have administrators migrating from previous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,48],"tags":[55,56],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solaris-11","category-solaris-gui-desktop","tag-gnome-console","tag-solaris-11"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9J8F7-iY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2154,"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/2154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unixed.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}