Re: Console Servers

[Mike Tancsa <mike () sentex net>]

I just went through this exercise.  In POP a) where space is a premium, I 
bought a 8 port RocketPort PCI serial card to sit in the FreeBSD firewall 
that was there.  ebay $50 and made the rj-11 to {rj-45|db9} cables in house 
(connections to other PCs and cisco gear).

In POP b) where space is not a problem, a PM2 with an existing FreeBSD box 
in front of it which we can SSH into, and then telnet to the individual 
serial ports.

Have a look on ebay for Livingston PM2s.  About $150-$200 US for upto 30 
serial ports. At under $200, buy and extra one for your "cold standby" 
spare.  Then, put a surplus PC in front of it (or an existing one) from 
where you can SSH from.  On the PM2 just for the archives,
set s1 device /dev/network
set s1 service_device netdata 6001
set s1 override xon off
set s1 modem off
save s1
reset s1

where 6001 is the port you would telnet to in order to get the serial 
session. These are about 4U, so you will require space to spare.

        ---Mike

At 06:42 PM 9/6/2002 -0400, Charles Sprickman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> It's been a while since I last saw this thread...
>
> I'm looking at a few listed below and looking for comments:
>
> Lantronix - http://www.lantronix.com/products/cs/scs820_scs1620/index.html
> Looks good, can't find a price on Ingram.
>
> Cyclades - http://www.cyclades.com/products/ts_series.php
> Looks to run about $2100 for 16 ports
>
> Digi - http://www.digi.com/solutions/devtermsrv/cm/index.shtml
> Looks to run about $1800 for 16 ports
>
> All of the above do sshv2, and that's a requirement.  I haven't found much
> else.  For the time being I'm ruling out old stuff like a Portmaster or
> Xylogics.
>
> I'd also appreciate pointers to any "roll your own" parts, esp. IDE ->
> Flash adapters and multiport serial cards that will work with FreeBSD.
>
> I can summarize to keep the noise down...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Charles
>
> --
> Charles Sprickman
> spork () inch com

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Mike Tancsa,                                      tel +1 519 651 3400
Sentex Communications,                            mike () sentex net
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