Run SCO OpenServer in a VM?

[Bill Davidsen]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
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> On 10/23/2011 03:34 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
>> I have a friend who is running his business on an old OpenServer machine, and
>> would love to be able to just run a copy in a VM. The issue is that it talks to
>> the old serial terminals through a multiport card. Any hope that I could get KVM
>> to provide usable serial ports to the VM using a modern card? Or even not so
>> new, I have a case of unused "HUB6" cards and would be glad to find a home for
>> one, since modem pools are not a big thing anymore.
>>
>> I last did SCO admin for a living in 1993, and have done little but Linux since,
>> so I'm not right on top of this OS any more :-(
>>
> I have not tried it, so this is just an idea. If Linux supports the
> multi-port card, and it does support some, then map that many serial
> ports from the VM to the actual ports. You will have to check if
> your VM has enough virtual ports to make it work.
>

Progress - I have the physical disk image in a file, and I start it with 
qemu-kvm and it comes up to the "boot:" prompt. At that point things I type are 
echoed to the console. If I hit ENTER the next part of the boot continues, and 
it gets to the prompt
   "Enter control-d for normal boot or root password for maintenance"
At that point it ignores the keyboard, and if I go into QEMU and try to send the 
character with that, "sendkey cntl-d" it ignores that as well. This was in a 
*very* old system and I bet it's looking for an AT keyboard rather than PS/2. 
Any thoughts?

I can take it to the KVM list, but there is a tendency to suggest going to the 
latest version of KVM before really looking at the problem. I can't do that, 
this is a production KVM host, and I can't really risk an upgrade.


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot