Re: Opengear alternatives that support 5g?

[Warren Kumari <warren () kumari net>]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 12:43 AM, Saku Ytti <saku () ytti fi> wrote:

> On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 03:11, David H <ispcolohost () gmail com> wrote:
>
> Curious if anyone has particular hardware they like for OOB / serial
> management, similar to OpenGear, but preferably with 5G support, maybe even
> T-Mobile support? It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get static IP 4g
> machine accounts out of Verizon, and the added speed would be nice too. Or
> do you separate the serial from the access device (cell+firewall, etc.)?
>
> You could get a 5G Catalyst with an async NIM or SM.
>
> But I think you're setting up yourself for unnecessary costs and failures
> by designing your OOB to require static IP. You could design it so that the
> OOB spokes dial-in to the central OOB hub, and the OOB hub doesn't care
> what IP they come from, using certificates or PSK for identity, instead of
> IP.


Yup, I agree — but that simply rewrites the question to be:
"Curious if anyone has particular hardware they like for OOB / serial
management, similar to OpenGear, but preferably with 5G support, which can
be a spoke that dials in to the central OOB hub, and the OOB hub doesn't
care what IP they come from, using certificates or PSK for identity,
instead of IP."

I've been on the same quest, and I have some additional requests /
features. Ideally it:

1: would be small - my particular use-case is for a "traveling rack", and
so 0U is preferred.

2: would be fairly cheap.

3: would not be a Raspberry-Pi, a USB hub and USB-to-serial cables. We
tried that for a while, and it was clunky — the SD card died a few times
(and jumped out entirely once!), people kept futzing with the OS and
fighting over which console software to use, installing other packages, etc.

4: support modern SSH clients (it seems like you shouldn't have to say
this, but… )

5: actually be designed as a termserver - the current thing we are using
doesn't really understand terminals, and so we need to use 'socat
-,raw,echo=0,escape=0x1d TCP:<termserver>:<port>' to get things like
tab-completion and "up-arrow for last command" to work.

6: support logging of serial (e.g crash-messages) to some sort of log /
buffer / similar (it's useful to be able to see what a device barfed all
over the console when it crashes.


The Get Console Airconsole TS series meets many of these requirements, but
it doesn't do #6. It also doesn't really feel like they have been updating
/ maintaining these.

Yes, I fully acknowledge that #3 falls into the "Doctor, Doctor, it hurts
when I do this" camp, but, well…

W



> --
> ++ytti