cross-connecting console ports?
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From: Miles Fidelman on 17 May 2010 17:10 Hi Folks, I have two rack-mounted servers located in a datacenter, running Debian Lenny. Every once in a while, in order to install stuff, I have to physically go to the data center and connect a terminal to one server or the other. Short of buying a remote KVM, it occurs to me that it might be possible to cross-connect the serial ports on the two computers - using a terminal program on one, to access the other, and vice versa. Has anybody done this? Any suggestions on where to start - both re. cabling (USB vs. serial cross-over), and/or software? Thanks very much, Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In<fnord> practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4BF1AE3A.2000201(a)meetinghouse.net
From: Robert Brockway on 17 May 2010 17:30 On Mon, 17 May 2010, Miles Fidelman wrote: > Has anybody done this? Any suggestions on where to start - both re. cabling > (USB vs. serial cross-over), and/or software? Hi Miles. Many of us have done this for years and years. You can go with a serial console over rj45 (including bios level tools) like iLO or DRAC or you can get Linux to provide you with a 'software serial console' that will be available from the bootloader (lilo or grub) onwards. A quick Google should turn up howtos on how to configure Grub & friends. I've always used true serial ports to do this although I understand it is possible via usb-serial connectors. You can use any serial terminal app to provide access to the serial port. I prefer minicom but there are lots of options. Keep security in mind when doing this. If soneone gets root access[1] to one of the servers then they can 0wn the other one. Don't cross-connect the serial consoles unless the servers are in the same 'security domain'. [1] You can restrict who can talk to minicom for example. Cheers, Rob -- Email: robert(a)timetraveller.org Linux counter ID #16440 IRC: Solver (OFTC & Freenode) Web: http://www.practicalsysadmin.com Open Source: The revolution that silently changed the world -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/alpine.DEB.1.10.1005171708120.7760(a)castor.opentrend.net
From: Andy Smith on 17 May 2010 23:50
Hi Miles, On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 04:59:38PM -0400, Miles Fidelman wrote: > Short of buying a remote KVM, it occurs to me that it might be possible > to cross-connect the serial ports on the two computers - using a terminal > program on one, to access the other, and vice versa. This works fine; I do it all the time when testing hardware. > Has anybody done this? Any suggestions on where to start - both re. > cabling (USB vs. serial cross-over), and/or software? These days it becomes easier to have a bunch of USB ports than a bunch of serial ports, so USB/serial converters are cheap and useful and I've yet to find one that doesn't just work under Debian. I used to use minicom, but lately I use "screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600" or whatever. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting |