#proxmox | #console | #hypervisor

July 26, 2022

Serial Terminal in Proxmox

Serial terminal

Configuration on the host

Add a virtual serial port to the VM

qm set <VMID> -serial0 socket

(or)

echo "serial0: socket" >> /etc/pve/qemu-server/<VMID>.conf

Configuration on the guest

Configure the terminal

Enable a serial console

systemctl enable serial-getty@ttyS0.service
systemctl start serial-getty@ttyS0.service

Instruct grub2 to send the boot messages on the serial port by editing /etc/default/grub and adding:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200"

run update-grub afterward.

TIPS

Add in .bashrc

export SYSTEMD_EDITOR=vim

Run systemctl edit serial-getty@ttyS0.service, and add the following:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty -o '-p -- \\u' --keep-baud 115200,38400,9600 --noclear --autologin root ttyS0 $TERM

This will cause agetty to auto-login the root user, but with only this change the system will still prompt you for the root password.

-o  --login-option
-p  --login-pause
\u  user
-J --noclear (Do not clear the screen before prompting the login name. By deafult the screen is cleared)

We can configure /etc/pam.d/login to authenticate root logins on the console without a password. Add the following to the top of /etc/pam.d/login:

auth sufficient pam_listfile.so item=tty sense=allow file=/etc/securetty onerr=fail apply=root

This will cause the PAM stack to check for the login tty in /etc/securetty, and to skip other authentication mechanisms if it finds it.

Add the serial port to /etc/securetty.

echo ttyS0 >> /etc/securetty

Connecting to the Serial Terminal

On the host, just enter

qm terminal <VMiD>

and enter enter a second time to get the prompt.

NOTE: if it seems this is not working, and if you have defined ttyS1, you can connect to it with the command:

qm terminal <VMiD> -iface serial1

Remember the qm terminal uses Ctrl-O as shortcut, so saving a file from nano with Ctrl-O will log you out instead.

root@zain-lab ~ # qm terminal 101011
starting serial terminal on interface serial0 (press Ctrl+O to exit)

root@console ~ #
root@console ~ # logout

Debian GNU/Linux 10 console ttyS0

console login: root (automatic login)

Last login: Thu May  6 18:14:49 UTC 2021 on ttyS0
Linux console 4.19.0-10-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.132-1 (2020-07-24) x86_64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
root@console ~ #
root@console ~ # root@zain-lab ~ #