Ubuntu Manpage: syscons, sc — the console driver

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NAME

     syscons, sc — the console driver

SYNOPSIS

     options MAXCONS=N
     options SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
     options SC_CUT_SEPCHARS=_characters_
     options SC_CUT_SPACES2TABS
     options SC_DISABLE_KDBKEY
     options SC_DISABLE_REBOOT
     options SC_HISTORY_SIZE=N
     options SC_MOUSE_CHAR=C
     options SC_NO_CUTPASTE
     options SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
     options SC_NO_HISTORY
     options SC_NO_PALETTE_LOADING
     options SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH
     options SC_NO_SYSMOUSE
     options SC_PIXEL_MODE
     options SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE
     options SC_NORM_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_DFLT_FONT
     makeoptions SC_DFLT_FONT=_font_name_
     device sc

     In /boot/device.hints:
     hint.sc.0.at="isa"
     hint.sc.0.vesa_mode=0x103

     In /boot/loader.conf:
     kern.vty=sc

DESCRIPTION

The syscons driver provides multiple virtual terminals. It resembles the SCO color console
driver.

The syscons driver is implemented on top of the keyboard driver (atkbd(4)) and the video
card driver (vga(4)) and so requires both of them to be configured in the system.

There can be only one syscons device defined in the system.

Virtual Terminals
The syscons driver provides multiple virtual terminals which appear as if they were separate
terminals. One virtual terminal is considered current and exclusively occupies the screen
and the keyboard; the other virtual terminals are placed in the background.

In order to use virtual terminals, they must be individually marked ``on'' in /etc/ttys so
that getty(8) will recognize them to be active and run login(1) to let the user log in to
the system. By default, only the first eight virtual terminals are activated in /etc/ttys.

You press the Alt key and a switch key to switch between virtual terminals. The following
table summarizes the correspondence between the switch key and the virtual terminal.

Alt-F1 ttyv0 Alt-F7 ttyv6 Shift-Alt-F1 ttyva
Alt-F2 ttyv1 Alt-F8 ttyv7 Shift-Alt-F2 ttyvb
Alt-F3 ttyv2 Alt-F9 ttyv8 Shift-Alt-F3 ttyvc
Alt-F4 ttyv3 Alt-F10 ttyv9 Shift-Alt-F4 ttyvd
Alt-F5 ttyv4 Alt-F11 ttyva Shift-Alt-F5 ttyve
Alt-F6 ttyv5 Alt-F12 ttyvb Shift-Alt-F6 ttyvf

You can also use the ``nscr'' key (usually the PrintScreen key on the AT Enhanced keyboard)
to cycle available virtual terminals.

The default number of available virtual terminals is 16. This can be changed with the
kernel configuration option MAXCONS (see below).

Note that the X server usually requires a virtual terminal for display purposes, so at least
one terminal must be left unused by getty(8) so that it can be used by the X server.

Key Definitions and Function Key Strings
The syscons driver, in conjunction with the keyboard driver, allows the user to change key
definitions and function key strings. The kbdcontrol(1) command will load a key definition
file (known as ``keymap'' file), dump the current keymap, and assign a string to a function
key. See keyboard(4) and kbdmap(5) for the keymap file.

You may want to set the keymap variable in /etc/rc.conf.local to the desired keymap file so
that it will be automatically loaded when the system starts up.

Software Font
For most modern video cards, e.g., VGA, the syscons driver and the video card driver allow
the user to change the font used on the screen. The vidcontrol(1) command can be used to
load a font file from /usr/share/syscons/fonts.

The font comes in various sizes: 8x8, 8x14 and 8x16. The 8x16 font is typically used for
the VGA card in the 80-column-by-25-line mode. Other video modes may require different font
sizes. It is better to always load all three sizes of the same font.

You may set font8x8, font8x14 and font8x16 variables in /etc/rc.conf to the desired font
files so that they will be automatically loaded when the system starts up.

Optionally you can specify a particular font file as the default. See the SC_DFLT_FONT
option below.

Screen Map
If your video card does not support software fonts, you may still be able to achieve a
similar effect by re-mapping the font built into your video card. Use vidcontrol(1) to load
a screen map file which defines the mapping between character codes.

Mouse Support and Copy-and-Paste
You can use your mouse to copy text on the screen and paste it as if it was typed by hand.
You must be running the mouse daemon moused(8) and enable the mouse cursor in the virtual
terminal via vidcontrol(1).

Pressing mouse button 1 (usually the left button) will start selection. Releasing button 1
will end the selection process. The selected text will be marked by inverting foreground
and background colors. You can press button 3 (usually the right button) to extend the
selected region. The selected text is placed in the copy buffer and can be pasted at the
cursor position by pressing button 2 (usually the middle button) as many times as you like.

If your mouse has only two buttons, you may want to use the SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE option below
to make the right button to paste the text. Alternatively you can make the mouse daemon
emulate the middle button. See the man page for moused(8) for more details.

Back Scrolling
The syscons driver allows the user to browse the output which has ``scrolled off'' the top
of the screen.

Press the ``slock'' key (usually ScrllLock / Scroll Lock or Pause on many keyboards) and the
terminal is in the ``scrollback'' mode. It is indicated by the Scroll Lock LED. Use the
arrow keys, the Page Up/Down keys and the Home/End keys to scroll buffered terminal output.
Press the ``slock'' key again to get back to the normal terminal mode.

The size of the scrollback buffer can be set by the SC_HISTORY_SIZE option described below.

Screen Saver
The syscons driver can be made to put up the screen saver if the current virtual terminal is
idle, that is, the user is not typing on the keyboard nor moving the mouse. See splash(4)
and vidcontrol(1) for more details.

DRIVER CONFIGURATION

Kernel Configuration Options
The following kernel configuration options control the syscons driver.

MAXCONS=N
This option sets the number of virtual terminals to N. The default value is 16.

SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
This option selects the alternative way of displaying the mouse cursor in the virtual
terminal. It may be expensive for some video cards to draw the arrow-shaped cursor,
and you may want to try this option. However, the appearance of the alternative
mouse cursor may not be very appealing. Note that if you use the SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
option then you must also use this option if you wish to be able to use the mouse.

SC_CUT_SEPCHARS=_characters_
This options specifies characters that will be looked for when the driver searches
for words boundaries when doing cut operation. By default, its value is "\x20" — a
space character.

SC_CUT_SPACES2TABS
This options instructs the driver to convert leading spaces into tabs when copying
data into cut buffer. This might be useful to preserve indentation when copying tab-
indented text.

SC_DISABLE_KDBKEY
This option disables the ``debug'' key combination (by default, it is Alt-Esc, or
Ctl-PrintScreen). It will prevent users from entering the kernel debugger (KDB) by
pressing the key combination. KDB will still be invoked when the kernel panics or
hits a break point if it is included in the kernel. If this option is not defined,
this behavior may be controlled at runtime by the sysctl(8) variable
hw.syscons.kbd_debug.

SC_DISABLE_REBOOT
This option disables the ``reboot'' key (by default, it is Ctl-Alt-Del), so that the
casual user may not accidentally reboot the system. If this option is not defined,
this behavior may be controlled at runtime by the sysctl(8) variable
hw.syscons.kbd_reboot.

SC_HISTORY_SIZE=N
Sets the size of back scroll buffer to N lines. The default value is 100.

SC_MOUSE_CHAR=C
Unless the SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option above is specified, the syscons driver reserves
four consecutive character codes in order to display the mouse cursor in the virtual
terminals in some systems. This option specifies the first character code to C to be
used for this purpose. The default value is 0xd0. A good candidate is 0x03.

SC_PIXEL_MODE
Adds support for pixel (raster) mode console. This mode is useful on some laptop
computers, but less so on most other systems, and it adds substantial amount of code
to syscons. If this option is NOT defined, you can reduce the kernel size a lot.
See the VESAMODE flag below.

SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE
If you have a two button mouse, you may want to add this option to use the right
button of the mouse to paste text. See Mouse Support and Copy-and-Paste above.

SC_NORM_ATTR=_attribute_

SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=_attribute_

SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=_attribute_

SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
These options will set the default colors. Available colors are defined in
<machine/pc/display.h>. See EXAMPLES below.

SC_DFLT_FONT
This option will specify the default font. Available fonts are: iso, iso2, koi8-r,
koi8-u, cp437, cp850, cp865, cp866 and cp866u. 16-line, 14-line and 8-line font data
will be compiled in. Without this option, the syscons driver will use whatever font
is already loaded in the video card, unless you explicitly load a software font at
startup. See EXAMPLES below.

SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH
This option, which is also available as loader(8) tunable and sysctl(8) variable
hw.syscons.sc_no_suspend_vtswitch, disables switching between virtual terminals
(graphics <-> text) during suspend/resume (ACPI and APM). Use this option if your
system is freezing when you are running X and trying to suspend.

The following options will remove some features from the syscons driver and save kernel
memory.

SC_NO_CUTPASTE
This option disables ``copy and paste'' operation in virtual terminals.

SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
The syscons driver can load software fonts on some video cards. This option removes
this feature. Note that if you still wish to use the mouse with this option then you
must also use the SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option.

SC_NO_HISTORY
This option disables back-scrolling in virtual terminals.

SC_NO_SYSMOUSE
This option removes mouse support in the syscons driver. The mouse daemon moused(8)
will fail if this option is defined. This option implies the SC_NO_CUTPASTE option
too.

Driver Flags
The following driver flags can be used to control the syscons driver. Driver flags can be
set with the hint.sc.0.flags tunable, either in /boot/device.hints, or else at the loader
prompt (see loader(8)).

0x0080 (VESAMODE)
This option puts the video card in the VESA mode specified by /boot/device.hints
variable vesa_mode during kernel initialization. Note that in order for this flag to
work, the kernel must be compiled with the SC_PIXEL_MODE option explained above. A
list of the available mode can be obtained via vidcontrol(1).

0x0100 (AUTODETECT_KBD)
This option instructs the syscons driver to periodically scan for a keyboard device
if it is not currently attached to one. Otherwise, the driver only probes for a
keyboard once during bootup.

Loader Tunables
These settings can be entered at the loader(8) prompt or in loader.conf(5).

kern.vty
When both syscons and vt(4) have been compiled into the kernel, the one to use for
the system console can be selected by setting this variable to ‘sc’ or ‘vt’. If not
set, the default console in the GENERIC kernel is vt(4).

FILES

     /dev/console
     /dev/consolectl
     /dev/ttyv?                      virtual terminals
     /etc/ttys                       terminal initialization information
     /usr/share/syscons/fonts/*      font files
     /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/*    key map files
     /usr/share/syscons/scrmaps/*    screen map files

EXAMPLES

As the syscons driver requires the keyboard driver and the video card driver, the kernel
configuration file should contain the following lines.

device atkbdc
device atkbd
device vga
device sc
device splash

You also need the following lines in /boot/device.hints for these drivers.

hint.atkbdc.0.at="isa"
hint.atkbdc.0.port="0x060"
hint.atkbd.0.at="atkbdc"
hint.atkbd.0.irq="1"
hint.vga.0.at="isa"
hint.sc.0.at="isa"

If you do not intend to load the splash image or use the screen saver, the last line is not
necessary, and can be omitted.

Note that the keyboard controller driver atkbdc is required by the keyboard driver atkbd.

The following lines will set the default colors. The normal text will be green on black
background. The reversed text will be yellow on green background. Note that you cannot put
any white space inside the quoted string, because of the current implementation of
config(8).

options SC_NORM_ATTR=(FG_GREEN|BG_BLACK)
options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=(FG_YELLOW|BG_GREEN)

The following lines will set the default colors of the kernel message. The kernel message
will be printed bright red on black background. The reversed message will be black on red
background.

options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=(FG_LIGHTRED|BG_BLACK)
options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=(FG_BLACK|BG_RED)

The following example adds the font files cp850-8x16.fnt, cp850-8x14.font and cp850-8x8.font
to the kernel.

options SC_DFLT_FONT
makeoptions SC_DFLT_FONT=cp850
device sc

HISTORY

     The syscons driver first appeared in FreeBSD 1.0.

AUTHORS

     The syscons driver was written by Søren Schmidt <sos@FreeBSD.org>.  This manual page was
     written by Kazutaka Yokota <yokota@FreeBSD.org>.

CAVEATS

     The amount of data that is possible to insert from the cut buffer is limited by the
     {MAX_INPUT}, a system limit on the number of bytes that may be stored in the terminal input
     queue - usually 1024 bytes (see termios(4)).

BUGS

     This manual page is incomplete and urgently needs revision.