Managing your network devices via console

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1

Hello,

It's always cool to have console access to routers/switches and
nowadays they are going from RS-232 to RJ-45 as a standart. I have got
Avocent DSR 2035 which is a KVM+Serial console (all in one).. but
while I was able to have it work against servers via KVM or/and Serial
, I was unable to make it work properly against any network device. I
am wondering if anyone had experience on DSR or similar boxes to
configure them against network devices console ports.

Making suggestions for alternative ways of centralizing network device
console management is also more than welcome, I guess the old
fashioned server attached usb-serial console is one of the most
preferred way, but feel free to provide if you have good ideas

cheers

2

I've found Avocents to be a nightmare, and the company to be horrible to
deal with.

They work fine as a local console switch, but they are absurdly
expensive for that use. The rest of their features are byzantine in
implementation and usage, and their support and licensing policies
exorbitant.

Old school terminal servers and IPMI/DRAC cards work very well.

3

Tomas L. Byrnes wrote:

I've found Avocents to be a nightmare, and the company to be horrible to
deal with.

They work fine as a local console switch, but they are absurdly
expensive for that use. The rest of their features are byzantine in
implementation and usage, and their support and licensing policies
exorbitant.

Old school terminal servers and IPMI/DRAC cards work very well.

I have a PM25 that's an absolutely awesome console server. The only
thing it can't do that would make it perfect is SSH. I've never been
particularly impressed with the responsiveness of IPMI/SOL, but it's
acceptable since it's typically only used in an emergency.

~Seth

4

Cisco makes a 16 port Async card for ISR routers, they even bundle it
with a 2811 router for fairly inexpensive $$$... Cisco2811-16TS is the
partnum I think
You can scale up very high or down very low for your console needs with
cisco routers, and inexpensive used or obsolete routers are available
for not much money.
The octal cables are available with rj45's already on them, which is
nice.... Email if you want a sample term server config for a 2800
router.

If Cisco is not what you want... Consult the Zonker's Greater Scroll of
Console Knowledge: http://www.conserver.com/consoles/ ... You may find
what you are looking for there.

5

i'll 'fess up to still using 2511s with 3des image

randy

6

Mehmet Akcin <mehmet@akcin.net> writes:

It's always cool to have console access to routers/switches and
nowadays they are going from RS-232 to RJ-45 as a standart. I have got
Avocent DSR 2035 which is a KVM+Serial console (all in one).. but
while I was able to have it work against servers via KVM or/and Serial
, I was unable to make it work properly against any network device. I
am wondering if anyone had experience on DSR or similar boxes to
configure them against network devices console ports.

I stumbled across these, which look like decent alternatives to getting
a 2511 from eBay: Perle | device networking, media conversion, & IoT connectivity

The 48-port 1U terminal server with redundant power looks particularily
nice.

I've no experience with Perle, though. Anyone else?

Bjørn

7

I stumbled across these, which look like decent alternatives to getting
a 2511 from eBay: Perle | device networking, media conversion, & IoT connectivity

The 48-port 1U terminal server with redundant power looks particularily
nice.

I've no experience with Perle, though. Anyone else?

I use them in my datacenter. SCS 32 with the IOLAN Modem card. I have some basic advice for using it as a dialup source. It also does IPSec via our DSL line which also happens to be our POTs line. All kinds of nice stuff but a bit of a pain to initially configure if you do not know what you are doing (slight learning curve). I'm happy with it.

8

jvargas@crypticstudios.com (Jake Vargas) wrote:

> I stumbled across these, which look like decent alternatives to getting
> a 2511 from eBay: Perle | device networking, media conversion, & IoT connectivity
>
> The 48-port 1U terminal server with redundant power looks particularily
> nice.
>
> I've no experience with Perle, though. Anyone else?
>

I use them in my datacenter. SCS 32 with the IOLAN Modem card. I have some basic advice for using it as a dialup source. It also does IPSec via our DSL line which also happens to be our POTs line. All kinds of nice stuff but a bit of a pain to initially configure if you do not know what you are doing (slight learning curve). I'm happy with it.

We are still using the "ancient" Cyclades/Avocent ACS'es with a matching
modem card (getting rare, them). They work fine, a bit slow on sshV2,
but no problems in all the remote locations. I had one (pretty old)
fail in the lab, but this might have been due to it being quite warm
there...

I am concerned about remote power control, though. If you know your
datacenter, you can get all kinds of remote-controlled power strips.

With us, we don't always know beforehand what kind of power the DCs
will have, and I'd like the exact same equipment everywhere (except
the cables, of course).

In order to achieve this, I used Cyclades (now Avocent) ATP3120-001
(20A@100-240V input on IEC C320-20, 10A outputs on IEC C320-13).

They have three shortcomings:
  - sometimes they forget their configuration (not critical)
  - they can only be accessed by serial console (no SNMP etc.)
  - consequently there's no power meter remote readout

Is anyone here aware of such universally usable devices that can
be accessed over IP and give power readouts remotely?

Electrical specs are as above - 20 Amps input (for 120V countries),
usable anywhere from 100-240 Volts and IEC input and output plugs...

Any hints?
(No, APC fails in the 100-240V part)
(No, Perle fails in the 100-240V and the IEC part)
(No, even Avocent's other strips fail there...)

Yours,
  Elmi.

9

Check out something like the BayTech RPC3 or RPC41 family? I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but that's what I just picked to have per-outlet monitoring and control for a research datacenter we're building.

   -Dave

10

Have you heard of or tried Cyberswitching for remote power management? The DualCom series provide remote SNMP and a WebUI control of all the outlets and you can also query them for how many amps each outlet is pulling. Their DualCom series does support 120-240 VAC as well as supporting IEC C13 and C19 outlets. I've used them for several installs and they work very well in that regard.

Take a look at them here: http://www.cyberswitching.com/products-dualcom.html

-Clay

11

We use Cyclades (avocent) devices in our data center. They have worked
great for us. Very reliable. Modem dial-in gives us great remote
capabilities if we have a major outage. We had troubles initially
getting them to work because the cable adapters were never pinned
correctly for Cisco. We ended up making our own rolled rj45-rj45 cables.
IIRC, this was a ton of work as you need to do some funky 2 wires in one
position stuff.

We also use Cisco 2500's with modem on the aux and an octo-cable for the
devices. This works well too, but not as nice of an interface as the
Cyclades. No special cables needed though.

For power we have been using APC Managed PDU's. These have been
fantastic. No compaints.

12

I am yet another that uses and loves Cyclades in my data center. The new ACS
6000 series is what I have now, which is quite nice due to the software pin
switching they have on that unit, this means no more special cisco dongles.
Also part of the reason for my use of the ACS is for the integration of the
Cyclades power strips, very seemless very nice. I have also used the Cisco
terminal server mods in the past and they worked just fine as well, though I
have no modern experience there.

-smiley

13

Thanks everyone for the answers...

It came down to a point where, just sticking a male-to-male null modem
in between made this work at 9600 =)

I guess sometimes solutions are way easier than we may think, heh.

Mehmet

14

Check out something like the BayTech RPC3 or RPC41 family? I don't
know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but that's what I just
picked to have per-outlet monitoring and control for a research
datacenter we're building.

   -Dave

We use Servertech's Sentry Switched CDU's for ours. All kinds of fun stuff it can do besides ssh/telnet/http(s)/snmp.