Cwaeth Walsh, Warren (MN65):
I've never disconnected the console while the filer is up and running. Will this crash the filer, or cause any problems? I know that some Sun servers crash when the console is disconnected, and I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.
No problem: repatch your serial console at will.
In the "old days" the Sun serial driver interpreted the noise injected on the RS-232 lines when reconnecting as a BREAK, and handled it as a request to drop into the firmware. Typing "go" at the firmware "ok" prompt usually resumed operation, but if you did anything to fiddle with the machine state (or if you didn't know what to type at the ok prompt) you could crash.
Filers ignore and discard BREAKs and other "junk" as much as possible. Our design goal is not to let actions like repatching the console interrupt availability of data.
By the way, your Customer Service rep would have been happy to answer this question. (Just trying to throw a little business their way.)
Yours, Mike Tuciarone NetCache Platform Software