I am having troubles with carrier detection for dialing in via a modem or direct connection via a null modem connection under Solaris 8 (i.e. login session remains active after the modem disconnects). I tried two different dumb modems (which do not respond to AT commands) on the machine that I am dialling into . I tested the CD output on one of the modems and found the appropriate voltage on the CD line when a carrier is detected/not detected (I have confirmed this using a volt meter and applying the appropriate carrier tone via a function generator). If you dial in, login, then hang up, and call back the previous session continues without prompting to login.
I then decided to try a null modem connection. When accessing the serial console on the Solaris 8 system using a null modem cable, the login session remains active when disconnecting the cable and plugging it back in. To my understanding this should not happen, in the first case with the modem, or with the null modem cable as I disabled software carrier detection:
Also I've specified the -S n parameter to disable software carrier detection:
/usr/sbin/pmadm -a -p zsmon -s ttya -i root \
-v `/usr/sbin/ttyadm -V` -fu -m "`/usr/sbin/ttyadm \
-p "login:" -d /dev/term/a -s /usr/bin/login -l contty2H from -b \
-S n -m ldterm,ttcompat`" -y "dial in/out on serial port"
The instructions that I followed to setup the dial in connection was from Celeste Stokely�s Tutorial on Solaris 2.x Modems and Terminals.
I decided to test out carrier detection on FreeBSD 9.1 on a different machine running within virtual box. I used a usb-serial dongle which shows up as ttyu0 on the BSD machine. Carrier detection appears to work. When I establish a null modem connection (using the same null modem cable that I tried on the Solaris machine) I receive a login prompt. If I login, and then unplug and plug back the null modem cable, I get the login prompt again and the old session does not continue.
I have read a post on-line about carrier detection in Solaris not working and being "broken".
It this correct? Is carrier detection a known bug/issue in Solaris 8?
A null modem is two cable heads and some wires. You can force CD true all the time with wiring it to DTR on the other side (if the other side powers off, there is no carrier). Wiring plans vary. Similar rules apply to other leads. Wiring varies to simulate a half duplex switched carrier modem as opposed to a full duplex continuous carrier modem. With the right wiring, it should be a rock. Null modem - Wikipedia Two DTE's, each pretending to be DCE to the other. RS-232 - Wikipedia
When using the null modem cable on the FreeBSD machine to another computer terminal, I receive the login prompt when the null modem cable is connected, and when I login, and then disconnect the cable and reconnect the cable again I receive the login prompt again. It appears the getty process in FreeBSD is detecting the carrier loss when the cable is disconnected and ending the previous login session. This is the correct behaviour to my understanding.
However on the Solaris system, when the null modem cable is connected to another computer terminal, if I login, and then disconnect the cable and then connect it back again I am still logged in at the shell. This means that on the Solaris machine it did not detect the carrier loss when the null modem cable was disconnected.
Since I have tried the same null modem cable on both the FreeBSD machine and the Solaris machine, I am thinking it has something to do with either a configuration setting in Solaris itself, the hardware on which Solaris is running on, or something else? ....
Well, the loss of DSR or CTS or even effectively a break (long zero) might also be what is detected. An rs232 can be as little as three wires, SD, RD and ground, emulating a current loop connection. Does stty have other lead watchers you might turn on? Can you put a breakout box on and see what leads are live as senders or receivers, or just a volt-ohm-meter, as even receivers usually have voltage or resistance you can sense?
The issue has been resolved. According to the documentation/tutorial referenced in my opening post, it mentioned to issue the following commands (which I did):