Sun 3 console question

[Stuart Levy]

We've seen two problems which can cause Sun RS-232 consoles to hang up.

One, some as-yet-undetermined programs can open /dev/kbd or /dev/mouse or
both, causing the console serial port to get set to 1200 bps, odd parity,
"keyboard" line discipline (!) as indicated by stty >/dev/console and
pstat -t.  To fix, try "stty new 9600 >/dev/console; reset >&
/dev/console".  To prevent, remove or rename /dev/kbd and /dev/mouse.
This suggestion showed up on this list quite a while back.

Another, recently discovered by some people here, it's possible to "steal"
the console device using the TIOCCONS ioctl.  It caught us when people
were running xterm's on our server (to an X terminal) and happened to
start a console one.  This is hard to prevent without a kernel mod but you
can ask people not to do it.