Re: [External] Opengear alternatives that support 5g?

[Warren Kumari <warren () kumari net>]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 11:55 AM, Hunter Fuller <nanog () nanog org> wrote:

> We use MikroTik for this. All manner of interfaces including LTE and 5G
> are available. I hear you can connect USB serial to them directly,


Yup, that's the solution I mentioned above with #5:
"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."

Most term-server type things allow you to ssh / telnet to a TCP port and
the device will expose the serial port wit some useful emulation.

The Mikrotik seems to only expose the serial interface this way using RFC
2217, which means that you need you need to use software that understands
virtual Com ports (like 'Serial' on OSX, Tactical Software's "COM Port
Redirector", or PuTTY or, on Unixes 'socat'). This is far from convenient….

Michel's Banana Pi BPI-R3 suggestion seems intriguing — yes, it still
suffers from the "Now I have another "machine" to manage and patch, and
people will try and install iperf / a Quake server / nmap / ruby / 17
different flavors of Emacs on it", but:
1: Perhaps I can mitigate that by making much of the filesystem read-only
and
2: it's a great excuse to buy another toy!

I also like Jared and Andrew's freetserv /
https://lathama.net/Tech/Hardware/USB-32COM-RM option. I might see about
building a bunch of the freetserv boards and connecting them to a Banana
Pi…. although, more realistically, I'll likely buy a few Banana Pi's, and
add them to the ever expanding pile of backlog projects…

I'm not really sure what happened to AirConsole — when they initially
launched they were great. They were making new devices with new
capabilities, they were updating the software regularly, they had great
support, etc. At some point it feels like they changed management and
everything sort of stopped…

W




but we also drop a surplus Dell OptiPlex at each location and attach the
> serial ports to that device. Total cost is <200 USD per site since we
> already have the older desktops laying around.





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