Connecting to a node’s serial console

Sometimes, when working on the bootup procedure of a walt image, looking at the serial console of a node may be useful. Command walt node console <node-name> allows to provide such a console.

For now, this is only possible with virtual nodes: walt node console connects you to the emulated serial console of the qemu process holding the virtual node.

The escape character used for key bindings is <ctrl-a>. Use <ctrl-a> d to quit the console (disconnect). Use <ctrl-a> a if you need to send <ctrl-a> to the node. (Note that <ctrl-a> <ctrl-a> works too.) All other <ctrl-a> <key> combinations are ignored.

Important note: when entering the console, if the node has nothing to print the screen will remain empty. If the node has finished booting, typing <enter> is usually enough to display the login prompt again. Otherwise (e.g. the node hanged earlier because of a kernel panic), one can trigger the display of bootup messages again by typing walt node reboot <node-name> in another terminal.