Rubenerd: FreeBSD 10 PVHVM serial console

[FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE](http://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.0R/announce.html “”) now has Xen PV drivers compiled into the GENERIC kernel. Specifically:

Major enhancements in virtualization, including the addition of bhyve(8), virtio(4), and native paravirtualized drivers providing support for FreeBSD as a guest operating system on Microsoft Hyper-V.

This means we can run it as an HVM Xen DomU, but with the performance of a paravirtualised VM for drivers, etc. We can also have console access, provided we initially install with VNC.

An example HVM configuration to get started:

## FreeBSD-10.cfg for Xen
## Kernel + memory size
kernel = '/usr/lib/xen-4.1/boot/hvmloader'
builder = 'hvm'
memory = '2048'
## Hostname
name = 'FreeBSD-10'
## Disk devices
boot = 'cd'
disk = [ 'phy:/dev/vg1/FreeBSD-10,hda,w',
         'file:/vm/ISO/fbsd10-amd64-d1.iso,hdc:cdrom,r' ]
## Networking
vif  = [ 'mac=&lt;random mac&gt;,bridge=xenbr0' ]
## Features
acpi = 1
apic = 1
## VNC + console
sdl    = 0
vnc    = 1
stdvga = 0
serial = 'pty'

Run the install as normal. After reboot, append this to /etc/rc.conf:

ifconfig_xn0="DHCP"

For console access, add the following to /boot/loader.conf:

boot_multicons="YES"
boot_serial="YES"
comconsole_speed="115200"
console="comconsole,vidconsole"

Then for /etc/ttys, comment out ttyu0 and replace with:

ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty std.115200 vt100 on secure

Now you can reboot, and access the console. From your hypervisor:

xm console FreeBSD-10

Or if you’re using the newer toolchain:

xl console FreeBSD-10

Now I want a DEC console.

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