# How can I see the FreeBSD boot messages in my terminal?



## gabam (Jul 26, 2011)

Dear friends,
             My FreeBSD system does not have a monitor, and I access that system throush ssh in putty. It is working allright, but the only problem that I have is that I cannot see all the messages during the boot process. I was wondering if there is a way I could see all those boot messages in my terminal while the FreeBSD system is booting, is it possible?? And one more thing, I cannot log on the system with root account through ssh, first I have to login with the normal account, and then doing su, why is that so?


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## bes (Jul 26, 2011)

dmesg(8)
Try:

```
dmesg -a
```
or

```
dmesg | while read line; do echo "$line"; sleep 0.5; done
```
Root logins are disallowed by default on FreeBSD for security reasons. 
To enable or disable root login, you need to set this in /etc/ssh/sshd_config file.
To enable direct root SSH login, you need to add following to /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

```
PermitRootLogin yes
```
Then restart sshd.


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## SirDice (Jul 26, 2011)

bes said:
			
		

> Root logins are disallowed by default on FreeBSD for security reasons.


And you are highly advised to keep it that way!


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## wblock@ (Jul 26, 2011)

gabam said:
			
		

> My FreeBSD system does not have a monitor, and I access that system throush ssh in putty. It is working allright, but the only problem that I have is that I cannot see all the messages during the boot process. I was wondering if there is a way I could see all those boot messages in my terminal while the FreeBSD system is booting, is it possible??



When booting, sshd isn't running yet, so no.  Serial console connections and console servers connect at a lower level, but still might not be available for some of the startup, like the BIOS screen.  There's Out-of-band management if you're very determined.


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## jrm@ (Jul 26, 2011)

Keeping in mind what others have written, /var/run/dmesg.boot might be useful for you.


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