FreeBSD servers and keyboards

November 5, 2005 at 8:02 pm · Filed under FreeBSD, Jr Admin, How To's

One of the minor issues I have with freebsd out of the box is that when I have a server network of a few hundred servers, I can’t just plug in a keyboard when we’re having an issue with the networking.

This is a common issue, the freebsd kernel doesn’t support just plug and play keyboards, however there is an easy fix to this mess.. well, easy if your comfortable recompiling a kernel (which you should be).

# cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
# cp GENERIC MYKERNEL

vi MYKERNEL

search for:

device atkbd0 at atkbdc? irq 1 flags 0×1

and replace the line with:

device atkbd0 at atkbdc? irq 1

save it (:wq!)

and then

# /usr/sbin/config MYKERNEL

# cd ../compile/MYKERNEL
(For FreeBSD versions prior to 5.0, use the following form instead: # cd ../../compile/MYKERNEL)

# make depend
# make
# make install
If everything went cleanly..
# shutdown -r now

and it should come back with a kernel that allows you to just plug in a PS2 style keyboard without any issues.

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