7.5. Alter target of /dev/systty

In many Linux distributions the file /dev/systty is a symbolic link to the device which is used as the by the attached monitor and keyboard. See Section 1.3 for a fuller description.

If there is no attached keyboard and monitor or no wish to give the attached keyboard and monitor greater capabilities then a text terminal, then alter /dev/systty to point to the serial console.

Rather than directly altering this symbolic link, it is better to modify the configuration file used by MAKEDEV , which is then run to recreate the symbolic link. The configuration file is in the directory /etc/makedev.d . The default configuration will point to the first virtual terminal, as shown in Figure 7-6 .

Figure 7-6. Default value of /dev/systty in /etc/makedev.d/linux-2.4.x

l systty tty0

Modify this to point to the serial port being used by the console, as shown in Figure 7-7 .

Figure 7-7. Alter value of /dev/systty in MAKEDEV configuration file

bash#
 
cd /etc/makedev.d


bash#
 
fgrep systty *


linux-2.4.x:l systty tty0


bash#
 
vi linux-2.4.x

l systty ttyS0

Now re-create /dev/systty using its new definition, as shown in Figure 7-8 .

Figure 7-8. Installing new value of /dev/systty

bash#
 
cd /dev


bash#
 
rm systty


bash#
 
./MAKEDEV systty