Table of contents

Description

Use this option to connect to the guests consoles, kill active connections if any and to view console log files.

Notes:

• "telnet" and/or "putty" package must be installed, they will be used to connect from the Charon server to the virtual machine console
• The method selected for connecting to the console is defined in the "Preferences".
• The session will be recorded in a log file:
  • If 'set OPA0 log=' is found in the configuration file (not available with all CHARON products versions), the log will be stored in the temporary folder: '/tmp/console.<configuration file name shortened>.tmp.log' and will be overwritten for each session. It is just kept for information as the console log is managed by the CHARON emulator itself. For Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX version 4.9 and above, the line "set COM1 alias = OPA0 port = <port>" (new syntax) is also checked.
  • If there is no 'set OPA0 log=' line in the configuration file, the file will be located in '/opt/charon/log/console.<configuration file name shortened>.log'
• If 'stop_on' and/or 'break_on' features are enabled in the configuration file, this will be reminded before starting the telnet session

• To leave the "telnet" session, press the escape character which is by default CTRL + ] . This character can be changed in the /root/.telnetrc file by defining the 'set escape' parameter:
  Example:

  # cat /root/.telnetrc DEFAULT   mode char   set escape ² #

  Pressing the escape key will lead you to the 'telnet> ' prompt. To leave the session, enter 'quit'.

• To leave the "putty" session, close the window. Note this will not stop the virtual machine as it is running in the background.
• If a connection to the console is active from the server, you will be prompted to kill the previous one.
• If a connection to the console is active from another location, it will be displayed but will not be killed. This will have to be done manually (there is no way to kill a remote connection to the console).
• The console port number is displayed per guest. If a port number is used more than once, an alert will be displayed.

Special comments in configuration file

For ease of use, it is possible to add formatted comments in the configuration file. These comments will appear before connecting to the console and can be used to describe the configuration, disks usage, etc...

To enable this feature, edit the configuration file and add comments starting with "#INFO:"

Example:

Example with telnet

...

Example with putty