xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/syscons.4 (revision 1e413cf93298b5b97441a21d9a50fdcd0ee9945e)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 1999
3.\" Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>
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27.\" $FreeBSD$
28.\"
29.Dd October 22, 2006
30.Dt SYSCONS 4
31.Os
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm syscons ,
34.Nm sc
35.Nd the console driver
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Cd "options MAXCONS=N"
38.Cd "options SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE"
39.Cd "options SC_CUT_SEPCHARS=_characters_"
40.Cd "options SC_CUT_SPACES2TABS"
41.Cd "options SC_DISABLE_KDBKEY"
42.Cd "options SC_DISABLE_REBOOT"
43.Cd "options SC_HISTORY_SIZE=N"
44.Cd "options SC_MOUSE_CHAR=C"
45.Cd "options SC_NO_CUTPASTE"
46.Cd "options SC_NO_FONT_LOADING"
47.Cd "options SC_NO_HISTORY"
48.Cd "options SC_NO_PALETTE_LOADING"
49.Cd "options SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH"
50.Cd "options SC_NO_SYSMOUSE"
51.Cd "options SC_PIXEL_MODE"
52.Cd "options SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE"
53.Cd "options SC_NORM_ATTR=_attribute_"
54.Cd "options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=_attribute_"
55.Cd "options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=_attribute_"
56.Cd "options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=_attribute_"
57.Cd "options SC_DFLT_FONT"
58.Cd "makeoptions SC_DFLT_FONT=_font_name_"
59.Cd "device sc"
60.Pp
61In
62.Pa /boot/device.hints :
63.Cd hint.sc.0.at="isa"
64.Sh DESCRIPTION
65The
66.Nm
67driver provides multiple virtual terminals.
68It resembles the SCO color console driver.
69.Pp
70The
71.Nm
72driver is implemented on top of the keyboard driver
73.Pq Xr atkbd 4
74and the video card driver
75.Pq Xr vga 4
76and so requires both of them to be configured in the system.
77.Pp
78There can be only one
79.Nm
80device defined in the system.
81.Ss Virtual Terminals
82The
83.Nm
84driver provides multiple virtual terminals which appear as if they were
85separate terminals.
86One virtual terminal is considered current and exclusively
87occupies the screen and the keyboard; the other virtual terminals
88are placed in the background.
89.Pp
90In order to use virtual terminals, they must be individually
91marked ``on'' in
92.Pa /etc/ttys
93so that
94.Xr getty 8
95will recognize them to be active and run
96.Xr login 1
97to let the user log in to the system.
98By default, only the first eight virtual terminals are activated in
99.Pa /etc/ttys .
100.Pp
101You press the
102.Dv Alt
103key and a switch key to switch between
104virtual terminals.
105The following table summarizes the correspondence between the switch
106key and the virtual terminal.
107.Bd -literal -offset indent
108Alt-F1   ttyv0      Alt-F7   ttyv6      Shift-Alt-F1   ttyva
109Alt-F2   ttyv1      Alt-F8   ttyv7      Shift-Alt-F2   ttyvb
110Alt-F3   ttyv2      Alt-F9   ttyv8      Shift-Alt-F3   ttyvc
111Alt-F4   ttyv3      Alt-F10  ttyv9      Shift-Alt-F4   ttyvd
112Alt-F5   ttyv4      Alt-F11  ttyva      Shift-Alt-F5   ttyve
113Alt-F6   ttyv5      Alt-F12  ttyvb      Shift-Alt-F6   ttyvf
114.Ed
115.Pp
116You can also use the ``nscr'' key (usually the
117.Dv PrintScreen
118key on the AT Enhanced keyboard) to cycle available virtual terminals.
119.Pp
120The default number of available virtual terminals is 16.
121This can be changed with the kernel configuration option
122.Dv MAXCONS
123(see below).
124.Pp
125Note that the X server usually requires a virtual terminal for display
126purposes, so at least one terminal must be left unused by
127.Xr getty 8
128so that it can be used by the X server.
129.Ss Key Definitions and Function Key Strings
130The
131.Nm
132driver, in conjunction with the keyboard driver, allows the user
133to change key definitions and function key strings.
134The
135.Xr kbdcontrol 1
136command will load a key definition file (known as ``keymap'' file),
137dump the current keymap, and assign a string to a function key.
138See
139.Xr keyboard 4
140and
141.Xr kbdmap 5
142for the keymap file.
143.Pp
144You may want to set the
145.Ar keymap
146variable in
147.Pa /etc/rc.conf.local
148to the desired keymap file so that it will be automatically loaded
149when the system starts up.
150.Ss Software Font
151For most modern video cards, e.g., VGA, the
152.Nm
153driver and the video card driver allow the user to change
154the font used on the screen.
155The
156.Xr vidcontrol 1
157command can be used to load a font file from
158.Pa /usr/share/syscons/fonts .
159.Pp
160The font comes in various sizes: 8x8, 8x14 and 8x16.
161The 8x16 font is typically used for the VGA card in the
16280-column-by-25-line mode.
163Other video modes may require different font sizes.
164It is better to always load all three sizes of the same font.
165.Pp
166You may set
167.Ar font8x8 ,
168.Ar font8x14
169and
170.Ar font8x16
171variables in
172.Pa /etc/rc.conf
173to the desired font files so that they will be automatically loaded
174when the system starts up.
175.Pp
176Optionally you can specify a particular font file as the default.
177See the
178.Dv SC_DFLT_FONT
179option below.
180.Ss Screen Map
181If your video card does not support software fonts, you may still be able
182to achieve a similar effect by re-mapping the font built into your video card.
183Use
184.Xr vidcontrol 1
185to load a screen map file which defines the mapping between character codes.
186.Ss Mouse Support and Copy-and-Paste
187You can use your mouse to copy text on the screen and paste it as if
188it was typed by hand.
189You must be running the mouse daemon
190.Xr moused 8
191and enable the mouse cursor in the virtual terminal via
192.Xr vidcontrol 1 .
193.Pp
194Pressing mouse button 1 (usually the left button) will start selection.
195Releasing button 1 will end the selection process.
196The selected text will be marked by inverting foreground and
197background colors.
198You can press button 3 (usually the right button) to extend
199the selected region.
200The selected text is placed in the copy buffer and can be pasted
201at the cursor position by pressing button 2 (usually the
202middle button) as many times as you like.
203.Pp
204If your mouse has only two buttons, you may want to use the
205.Dv SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE
206option below to make the right button to paste the text.
207Alternatively you can make the mouse daemon
208emulate the middle button.
209See the man page for
210.Xr moused 8
211for more details.
212.Ss Back Scrolling
213The
214.Nm
215driver allows the user to browse the output which has ``scrolled off''
216the top of the screen.
217.Pp
218Press the ``slock'' key (usually
219.Dv ScrllLock
220/
221.Dv Scroll Lock
222or
223.Dv Pause
224on many keyboards) and the terminal is
225in the ``scrollback'' mode.
226It is indicated by the
227.Dv Scroll Lock
228LED.
229Use the arrow keys, the
230.Dv Page Up/Down
231keys and the
232.Dv Home/End
233keys to scroll buffered terminal output.
234Press the ``slock'' key again to get back to the normal terminal mode.
235.Pp
236The size of the scrollback buffer can be set by the
237.Dv SC_HISTORY_SIZE
238option described below.
239.Ss Screen Saver
240The
241.Nm
242driver can be made to put up the screen saver if the current
243virtual terminal is idle, that is, the user is not typing
244on the keyboard nor moving the mouse.
245See
246.Xr splash 4
247and
248.Xr vidcontrol 1
249for more details.
250.Sh DRIVER CONFIGURATION
251.Ss Kernel Configuration Options
252The following kernel configuration options control the
253.Nm
254driver.
255.Bl -tag -width MOUSE
256.It Dv MAXCONS=N
257This option sets the number of virtual terminals to
258.Fa N .
259The default value is 16.
260.It Dv SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
261This option selects the alternative way of displaying the mouse cursor
262in the virtual terminal.
263It may be expensive for some video cards to draw the arrow-shaped
264cursor, and you may want to try this option.
265However, the appearance of the alternative mouse cursor may not be
266very appealing.
267Note that if you use the
268.Dv SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
269option then you must also use this option if you wish to be able to use
270the mouse.
271.It Dv SC_CUT_SEPCHARS=_characters_
272This options specifies characters that will be looked for when the
273driver searches for words boundaries when doing cut operation.
274By default, its value is
275.Qq Li \ex20
276\(em a space character.
277.It Dv SC_CUT_SPACES2TABS
278This options instructs the driver to convert leading spaces into tabs
279when copying data into cut buffer.
280This might be useful to preserve
281indentation when copying tab-indented text.
282.It Dv SC_DISABLE_KDBKEY
283This option disables the ``debug'' key combination (by default, it is
284.Dv Alt-Esc ,
285or
286.Dv Ctl-PrintScreen ) .
287It will prevent users from
288entering the kernel debugger (KDB) by pressing the key combination.
289KDB will still be invoked when the kernel panics or hits a break point
290if it is included in the kernel.
291If this option is not defined, this behavior may be controlled at runtime
292by the
293.Xr sysctl 8
294variable
295.Va hw.syscons.kbd_debug .
296.It Dv SC_DISABLE_REBOOT
297This option disables the ``reboot'' key (by default, it is
298.Dv Ctl-Alt-Del ) ,
299so that the casual user may not accidentally reboot the system.
300If this option is not defined, this behavior may be controlled at runtime
301by the
302.Xr sysctl 8
303variable
304.Va hw.syscons.kbd_reboot .
305.It Dv SC_HISTORY_SIZE=N
306Sets the size of back scroll buffer to
307.Fa N
308lines.
309The default value is 100.
310.It Dv SC_MOUSE_CHAR=C
311Unless the
312.Dv SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
313option above is specified, the
314.Nm
315driver reserves four consecutive character codes in order to display the
316mouse cursor in the virtual terminals in some systems.
317This option specifies the first character code to
318.Fa C
319to be used for this purpose.
320The default value is 0xd0.
321A good candidate is 0x03.
322.It Dv SC_PIXEL_MODE
323Adds support for pixel (raster) mode console.
324This mode is useful on some laptop computers, but less so on
325most other systems, and it adds substantial amount of code to syscons.
326If this option is NOT defined, you can reduce the kernel size a lot.
327See the
328.Dv VESA800X600
329flag below.
330.It Dv SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE
331If you have a two button mouse, you may want to add this option
332to use the right button of the mouse to paste text.
333See
334.Sx Mouse Support and Copy-and-Paste
335above.
336.It Dv SC_NORM_ATTR=_attribute_
337.It Dv SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
338.It Dv SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=_attribute_
339.It Dv SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
340These options will set the default colors.
341Available colors are defined in
342.In machine/pc/display.h .
343See
344.Sx EXAMPLES
345below.
346.It Dv SC_DFLT_FONT
347This option will specify the default font.
348Available fonts are: iso, iso2, koi8-r, koi8-u, cp437, cp850, cp865,
349cp866 and cp866u.
35016-line, 14-line and 8-line font data will be compiled in.
351Without this option, the
352.Nm
353driver will use whatever font is already loaded in the video card,
354unless you explicitly load a software font at startup.
355See
356.Sx EXAMPLES
357below.
358.It Dv SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH
359This option, which is also available as
360.Xr loader 8
361tunable and
362.Xr sysctl 8
363variable
364.Va hw.syscons.sc_no_suspend_vtswitch ,
365disables switching between virtual terminals (graphics <-> text) during
366suspend/resume (ACPI and APM).
367Use this option if your system is freezing
368when you are running X and trying to suspend.
369.El
370.Pp
371The following options will remove some features from the
372.Nm
373driver and save kernel memory.
374.Bl -tag -width MOUSE
375.It Dv SC_NO_CUTPASTE
376This option disables ``copy and paste'' operation in virtual
377terminals.
378.It Dv SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
379The
380.Nm
381driver can load software fonts on some video cards.
382This option removes this feature.
383Note that if you still wish to use
384the mouse with this option then you must also use the
385.Dv SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
386option.
387.It Dv SC_NO_HISTORY
388This option disables back-scrolling in virtual terminals.
389.\".It Dv SC_NO_PALETTE_LOADING
390.It Dv SC_NO_SYSMOUSE
391This option removes mouse support in the
392.Nm
393driver.
394The mouse daemon
395.Xr moused 8
396will fail if this option is defined.
397This option implies the
398.Dv SC_NO_CUTPASTE
399option too.
400.El
401.Ss Driver Flags
402The following driver flags can be used to control the
403.Nm
404driver.
405They can be set either in
406.Pa /boot/device.hints ,
407or else at the loader prompt (see
408.Xr loader 8 ) .
409.Bl -tag -width bit_0
410.\".It bit 0 (VISUAL_BELL)
411.\"Uses the ``visual'' bell.
412.\"The screen will blink instead of generating audible sound.
413.\".It bit 1,2 (CURSOR_TYPE)
414.\"This option specifies the cursor appearance.
415.\"Possible values are:
416.\".Bl -tag -width TYPE -compact
417.\".It Dv 0
418.\"normal block cursor
419.\".It Dv 2
420.\"blinking block cursor
421.\".It Dv 4
422.\"underline cursor
423.\".It Dv 6
424.\"blinking underline (aka destructive) cursor
425.\".El
426.\".It bit 6 (QUIET_BELL)
427.\"This option suppresses the bell, whether audible or visual,
428.\"if it is rung in a background virtual terminal.
429.It 0x0080 (VESA800X600)
430This option puts the video card in the VESA 800x600 pixel, 16 color
431mode.
432It may be useful for laptop computers for which the 800x600 mode
433is otherwise unsupported by the X server.
434Note that in order for this flag to work, the kernel must be
435compiled with the
436.Dv SC_PIXEL_MODE
437option explained above.
438.\"Note also that the ``copy-and-paste'' function is not currently supported
439.\"in this mode and the mouse pointer will not be displayed.
440.It 0x0100 (AUTODETECT_KBD)
441This option instructs the syscons driver to periodically scan
442for a keyboard device if it is not currently attached to one.
443Otherwise, the driver only probes for a keyboard once during bootup.
444.El
445.Sh FILES
446.Bl -tag -width /usr/share/syscons/xxxxyyyyzzz -compact
447.It Pa /dev/console
448.It Pa /dev/consolectl
449.It Pa /dev/ttyv?
450virtual terminals
451.It Pa /etc/ttys
452terminal initialization information
453.It Pa /usr/share/syscons/fonts/*
454font files
455.It Pa /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/*
456key map files
457.It Pa /usr/share/syscons/scrmaps/*
458screen map files
459.El
460.Sh EXAMPLES
461As the
462.Nm
463driver requires the keyboard driver and the video card driver,
464the kernel configuration file should contain the following lines.
465.Pp
466.Bd -literal -offset indent
467device atkbdc
468device atkbd
469device vga
470device sc
471
472device splash
473.Ed
474You also need the following lines in
475.Pa /boot/device.hints
476for these drivers.
477.Bd -literal -offset indent
478hint.atkbdc.0.at="isa"
479hint.atkbdc.0.port="0x060"
480hint.atkbd.0.at="atkbdc"
481hint.atkbd.0.irq="1"
482hint.vga.0.at="isa"
483hint.sc.0.at="isa"
484.Ed
485.Pp
486If you do not intend to load the splash image or use the screen saver,
487the last line is not necessary, and can be omitted.
488.Pp
489Note that the keyboard controller driver
490.Nm atkbdc
491is required by the keyboard driver
492.Nm atkbd .
493.Pp
494The following lines will set the default colors.
495The normal text will be green on black background.
496The reversed text will be yellow on green background.
497Note that you cannot put any white space inside the quoted string,
498because of the current implementation of
499.Xr config 8 .
500.Pp
501.Dl "options SC_NORM_ATTR=(FG_GREEN|BG_BLACK)
502.Dl "options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=(FG_YELLOW|BG_GREEN)
503.Pp
504The following lines will set the default colors of the kernel message.
505The kernel message will be printed bright red on black background.
506The reversed message will be black on red background.
507.Pp
508.Dl "options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=(FG_LIGHTRED|BG_BLACK)
509.Dl "options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=(FG_BLACK|BG_RED)
510.Pp
511The following example adds the font files
512.Pa cp850-8x16.fnt ,
513.Pa cp850-8x14.font
514and
515.Pa cp850-8x8.font
516to the kernel.
517.Pp
518.Dl "options SC_DFLT_FONT"
519.Dl "makeoptions SC_DFLT_FONT=cp850
520.Dl "device sc"
521.\".Sh DIAGNOSTICS
522.Sh CAVEATS
523The amount of data that is possible to insert from the cut buffer is limited
524by the
525.Brq Dv MAX_INPUT ,
526a system limit on the number of bytes that may be stored in the terminal
527input queue - usually 1024 bytes
528(see
529.Xr termios 4 ) .
530.Sh SEE ALSO
531.Xr kbdcontrol 1 ,
532.Xr login 1 ,
533.Xr vidcontrol 1 ,
534.Xr atkbd 4 ,
535.Xr atkbdc 4 ,
536.Xr keyboard 4 ,
537.Xr screen 4 ,
538.Xr splash 4 ,
539.Xr ukbd 4 ,
540.Xr vga 4 ,
541.Xr kbdmap 5 ,
542.Xr rc.conf 5 ,
543.Xr ttys 5 ,
544.Xr config 8 ,
545.Xr getty 8 ,
546.Xr kldload 8 ,
547.Xr moused 8
548.Sh HISTORY
549The
550.Nm
551driver first appeared in
552.Fx 1.0 .
553.Sh AUTHORS
554.An -nosplit
555The
556.Nm
557driver was written by
558.An S\(/oren Schmidt Aq sos@FreeBSD.org .
559This manual page was written by
560.An Kazutaka Yokota Aq yokota@FreeBSD.org .
561.Sh BUGS
562This manual page is incomplete and urgently needs revision.
563