First of all, the usual thanks (specially to those that sent
long messages with detailed information). You all are truly
amazing.
In summary, the majority of the responses I got, suggested a
Xylogics terminal server (which is probably the route we will
take). One of its main advantages is remote control capability.
There are also a couple of products (called ServeView console,
and ServerSwitch) that sound interesting, and worth looking
into.
Below are the messages I got from:
Reto Lichtensteiger
Glenn Satchell
John Stoffel
David Schiffrin
Gene Rackow
Stephen Harris
Robert Jennings
Danny Johnson
Ric Anderson
Gregory M Polanski
Jay Morgan
Dieter Gobbers
Timothy Henrion
David Theroff
==========================================================================
Assuming Sun servers ...
There is a product out there called "ServerSwitch" (Big surprise, nyet?)
It allows you to connect 5 13W3 video cards & keyboards to a single monitor
and keyboard. It is further possible to cascade a number of these
together to handle something like 25 servers from a single
monitor/keyboard.
The switch has a microprocessor so each server attached thinks it has a
monitor and keyboard attached (eg., checking for keyboard while booting)
It also appears to be possible to have they keyboard/monitor quite a
distance away from the servers themselves using and extension cable and a
"remote controller" for the switch.
Call Access Development Corp @ 800 228 0795 for brochures ...
FWIW: I have one such device that I'm using for my firewall servers and
it works quite well. Price was $2k; seems to have been worth it as I've
recycled the other monitors <g> ...
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A couple of options I have seen which seem to work ok.
1) Get serial port card(s) for a Sun. Connect each console port to a
serial port on the Sun. You have a graphics console on the Sun, and you
have one window (xterm or cmdtool) for each serial port and hence each
system's console.
2) Get a terminal server and do the same thing as above.
3) buy a large A-B switch with as many ports as systems and switch between them.
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One solution to your problem would be to get a multiport serial line
server, such as the Annex series from Xylogics. You would then
connect all the consoles to this device. To access a console, you
would then connect to the proper port on the server. We do this,
though we don't have enough ports for our consoles and need to expand
this.
We also have a cheap laptop computer that we carry around and use as a
dumb terminal around the machine room and the rest of the building.
Works quite well, though we want another. A slow 386 is fine since
you're just using it for it's screen and keyboard.
As for terminals, I'd recommend DEC VT4xx or 5xx series terminals.
They're rugged and almost all vendors support VT100/220 terminal
emulation.
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I like to use terminal servers for this sort of thing. I can telnet to them from els
ewhere, I can telnet to them from here, and each 'console' (actually each termserver
serial port) gets it's own IP address. I can even put a modem on one of the termser
ver ports and dial into it from home, and connect to each console......
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The solution we use works very well for the problem you have. We've
been using it now for about 7 years and have gone from 6 consoles to
about 30. Another location is using the same thing with about 150
"consoles" attached.
Wire the RS-232 ports to a terminal server, we use a couple old annex1's
and a few ports off of an annex3. The fact we have several annex's in
use is that the machines are physically in different areas of the building.
Then have 1 machine run a console-server processes that records all the
data to/from the "consoles" and manages the console connections. Make sure
you UPS the annex and the consoleserver machine so they can be the first up
and last down on your net. It's no fun having a power outage and things
start booting before your "console" is ready. Proper planning and this
is not a problem.
When you want to connect to a console of a machine now, you can do so by
running a "console" program. The added benefit of this solution is that
we no longer need to go to to computer room to get to the console of the
machine. We can do everything but touch the power switch remotely. If
we needed to hit switches more often, we'd probably think about a remote
capability on that as well. It has saved me more miles than I care to
count as I haven't had to go in on weekends, etc to fix problems.
Another big win is that you now have a much longer scroll-back on the
console window. Our one console log is now many megs in length. (Hmmm,
what looks different about this boot than the one 3 months ago?)
There is a paper on this in the Usenix LISA procedings from several years
back. We modified the sources some to work with the annex terminal server.
I'm not sure what Purdue and/or Ohio-State have done since then on the
original versions.
Our version of the program is available via ftp from
ftp.mcs.anl.gov//pub/systems/conserver-5.11.anl.tar.Z
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get a terminal server and set the ports up as "remote telnet" ports
(eg port 'n' is available on tcp port 2000+n) so then you can do do
telnet termserver 2001
and be on the console connected to port 1
etc
etc
Check the summary archives for "terminal server"
-------------------------------------------------------------
You can use a terminal server for this. If you connect up the console
port of each host to the terminal server. You can then connect to the
ports on the terminal servers and get the console session by just using
telnet. Some terminal servers will even actually keep a history of
all the messages sent to that port (console) and ask you if you want
to see the history when you connect to the port. Ofcourse you have to
get a terminal server that is managed by a host as it will need
somewhere to store the history. The one I have seen in place was a
Xylogic terminal server (Not sure about the name could be Xylinx).
------------------------------------------------------------
SUN sells a serial-line-based terminal server that does
a decent job.
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Hardly "state of the art", but we use the Black Box brand Terminal
Eliminator plus (TE+) product to gather up 8 sun consoles and
control them via a single serial port. Normally its connected to
a wyse-75 terminal, but can be modemized if needed. The TE+ units
can be cascaded to handle larger installations.
------------------------------------------------------------
Use a Xylogics Terminal Server to TTYA (null modem cable).
Add a modem to one port so you can dial in if the network is down.
If you wish, put one dumb terminal on one port.
The big benefits are small space, easy remote access, and
access to the console for booting or single user work.
------------------------------------------------------------
One thing you could do is plug the console ports of the servers into a terminal
server. At that point, you could plug terminals into some of the other ports,
and telnet to any machine you wish. This terminal server could be standalone,
or you could hook it up to your LAN, and access the console from any system on
the LAN with telnet capability. If you put a modem on the terminal server,
you can manage the systems from home.
------------------------------------------------------------
We've connected our server consoles to a communications server. It provides
up to 30 serial ports and is accessible via TCP/IP through thick, thin and
twisted pair ethernet.
Our Communications Server is a PM-2 from Livingston Enterprises, inc.
------------------------------------------------------------
I had a similar situation a couple years ago. We connected the terminal
port of all our servers to a port on a terminal server. This not only
go rid of all the console terminals, it allowed us to get to the console
from any machine on our network. (We could also dial-in from home and
get to the console.) the only problem was if the terminal server lost
power, all the servers would go down. So we plugged the terminal server
into the same UPS as the servers.
We used Xylogics terminal servers, but others would work as well.
------------------------------------------------------------
Rose Electronics
10707 Stancliff Road
Houstin Tx 77099
713-933-7673
They carry the ServeView console switch that supports any combination of mac pc AND
SUN, and you can chain these boxes together for a total of 256 machines!
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