Realweasel is a great idea if you can afford it -- but the PCI version
lists for $350, which is as expensive as some used 1U servers on EBay.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
Is there an effective alternative? All the intel "servers" these days
seem to have one of those handy-dandy (note: sarcasm) ethernet ports
variously called "integrated lights-out (ILO)" or "lights-out
management (LOM)", etc.
I am dismayed that intel-based server vendors haven't noticed the
decades-old trend of having serial ports for emergency/remote access.
Kelly
>
>
> >> I agree, lack of interactive access to a system prior to a functional OS
> >> being loaded always seemed like a potential problem area to me,
> >> particularly for something based on common PC architecture.
> >
> >http://www.realweasel.com/ is your friend. (isc has about a dozen of 'em.)
> >
>
> Realweasel is a great idea if you can afford it -- but the PCI version
> lists for $350, which is as expensive as some used 1U servers on EBay.Is there an effective alternative? All the intel "servers" these days
seem to have one of those handy-dandy (note: sarcasm) ethernet ports
variously called "integrated lights-out (ILO)" or "lights-out
management (LOM)", etc.I am dismayed that intel-based server vendors haven't noticed the
decades-old trend of having serial ports for emergency/remote access.
serial ports work fine for pc consoles in general, once your bootloader
takes over you can display pretty much everything over there... some
vendors provide options to map the bios display on the serial ports
(supermicro) it's doesn't work for the bioses of some raid controllers
however, a pc-weasel will handle that condition fine,and the pc-weasel can
also do a hardware re-set of the whole machine to restart a hung box...
They don't work so well if you only have one pci slot which you need for a
raid controller or if as I found out recently someone reconfigures the
terminal server and inadvertantly locks you out when you need it most.
Hello All ,
...snip...
> Is there an effective alternative? All the intel "servers" these days
> seem to have one of those handy-dandy (note: sarcasm) ethernet ports
> variously called "integrated lights-out (ILO)" or "lights-out
> management (LOM)", etc.
> I am dismayed that intel-based server vendors haven't noticed the
> decades-old trend of having serial ports for emergency/remote access.
serial ports work fine for pc consoles in general, once your bootloader
takes over you can display pretty much everything over there... some
vendors provide options to map the bios display on the serial ports
(supermicro) it's doesn't work for the bioses of some raid controllers
however, a pc-weasel will handle that condition fine,and the pc-weasel can
also do a hardware re-set of the whole machine to restart a hung box...
They don't work so well if you only have one pci slot which you need for a
raid controller or if as I found out recently someone reconfigures the
terminal server and inadvertantly locks you out when you need it most.
Tyan (& another I can't remember now) have console forwarding to
the com1 port . This MB is available in PenguinComputing's 1u &
2u systems . They run *BSD just fine as well . Hth , JimL
Many of Intel's server boards support this (or at least did as of several
years ago). I had some issues getting Linux to play nice with that
feature turned on. I never had one of them sitting around long to figure
out the issues before putting them in service (with console redirection
turned off). This was the T440BX/NL440BX board, which is kind of dated
now.
If you have some old Cacheflow boxes sitting around, they probably
have this board in them. I don't know if they've done anything to them
that would cause problems using it in something other than the cacheflow.
At 9:51 AM -0600 on 3/18/04, Kelly Setzer wrote:
>> I agree, lack of interactive access to a system prior to a functional OS
>> being loaded always seemed like a potential problem area to me,
>> particularly for something based on common PC architecture.
>
>http://www.realweasel.com/ is your friend. (isc has about a dozen of 'em.)
>Realweasel is a great idea if you can afford it -- but the PCI version
lists for $350, which is as expensive as some used 1U servers on EBay.Is there an effective alternative? All the intel "servers" these days
seem to have one of those handy-dandy (note: sarcasm) ethernet ports
variously called "integrated lights-out (ILO)" or "lights-out
management (LOM)", etc.I am dismayed that intel-based server vendors haven't noticed the
decades-old trend of having serial ports for emergency/remote access.Kelly
Many of the SuperMicro motherboards currently have BIOS-level serial consoles that can be activated, and the Intel 440 series also had it (I have 20 or 30 of them). This means I see the BIOS power-up debugs, can get into the BIOS configuration, I see the SCSI PCI messages, just as if there was a screen and keyboard attached to the machine. I don't know what Intel offers today, but I suspect they kept the serial console capability on their server class systems. I suspect other vendors have similar features, but I don't have a large enough sample to say if it's "common" or not. I suspect that serial consoles are common on "high-end" server motherboards, but probably don't exist on the less expensive models, a difference which I'll chalk up to market pressures. If the server you're evaluating doesn't have serial OOB, then I would have grave suspicions about other aspects of it's construction, as the lack of a serial console indicates lack of "server requirement" clue. This gets back to a previous discussion from quite some time ago about standardized out-of-band configuration interfaces for equipment...
The combination of an APC 9210 power cycle device plus a Cisco 2511 or 2509 with an octal serial cable has never failed me, and I'm at the "low end" of the price scale for my personal systems.
While I do prefer a "real" serial LOM kit (i.e.: Sun Microsystems) the pricepoint for i386-type 1u servers is difficult to match. I've never had a lockup I couldn't get out of, as long as I've hooked up the cables the right way. All my systems are at least 600 miles away, and some of them are 3500 miles away, so I have to rely completely on my out-of-band network. I converted from Sun to Intel-based systems about two years ago, and I've been very pleased with the performance and price, though I miss the quality and consistency of Sun hardware. For DNS, personal web, mail, and other mundane tasks, I find that I'm able to afford serial OOB-capable Intel-based systems of two or three years ago (PIII) which have enough horsepower to do the trick.
RealWeasel is too expensive (even with the hypothetical NANOG discount) though extremely nice. As previously mentioned, I can purchase an entire system with serial console built in for that price. If I had a vendor-specific piece of equipment that simply did not do the Right Thing but was tied to a particular motherboard, then I'd consider a RealWeasel.
Continuing the thread of costs for a 1u "personal" co-lo offering, here is a little back-of-the-ebay-napkin surfing:
$250 (Cisco 2511 w/cables) + 2x$200 (APC 9210) + 16x$270 (1u Intel PIII 650/2x18gSCSI/1g) = $4970 for 16 remotely-configurable/rebootable machines in 19u of space. Now, double that for 38u (4u short of a full rack) and add a Cisco 3548 at $1600. That turns into $11540 for 34 machines, all remotely manageable with remote power cycle. One of those systems could be an altq traffic shaper/router. Not a bad configuration for a best-effort 1u rental service. The trick of course is getting 32 identically-configured 1u machines at this price, with some spares. It's nice to buy equipment on eBay on a one-by-one basis, it doesn't scale for bulk purchases of identical equipment.
Does listing example ebay auctions substitute the legitimacy of posting router configs? Probably not.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3081026454&category=1484
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3080508042&category=11185
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3082713166&category=20315
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3082896913&category=28040
JT
Their server-class 1U/2U boards still do it - either the older (probably
soon to be EOL'd) SCB2ATA/SCB2SCSI Pentium III boards and the newer
SE7501WV2 Xeon boards. Both of those boards integrates in 1U or 2U, ATA
RAID or SCSI, and plays very nicely with FreeBSD. The SRCZCR RAID
daughtercard for the SE7501WV2 even has Intel-provided FreeBSD drivers
including storage console in the OS (something I've had a hard time
finding on FreeBSD from vendors like Adaptec). The serial support also
works like a charm all the way through the BIOS into the OS. We've got a
ton of these in production and they're rock solid.
Tim Wilde
Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
Realweasel is a great idea if you can afford it -- but the PCI version lists for $350, which is as expensive as some used 1U servers on EBay.
It'd be better if it had an ethernet port on it and allowed ssh access to the console, like the remote ILO stuff on compaq boxes. Still, a good idea for sure, if not a little pricey as you say.
[...]
>> Realweasel is a great idea if you can afford it -- but the PCI version
>> lists for $350, which is as expensive as some used 1U servers on EBay.
>
>Is there an effective alternative? All the intel "servers" these days
>seem to have one of those handy-dandy (note: sarcasm) ethernet ports$250 (Cisco 2511 w/cables) + 2x$200 (APC 9210) + 16x$270 (1u Intel
PIII 650/2x18gSCSI/1g) = $4970 for 16
remotely-configurable/rebootable machines in 19u of space. Now,
double that for 38u (4u short of a full rack) and add a Cisco 3548 at
$1600. That turns into $11540 for 34 machines, all remotely
manageable with remote power cycle. One of those systems could be an
altq traffic shaper/router. Not a bad configuration for a
best-effort 1u rental service. The trick of course is getting 32
identically-configured 1u machines at this price, with some spares.
It's nice to buy equipment on eBay on a one-by-one basis, it doesn't
scale for bulk purchases of identical equipment.
This is relevant, if tangential, to the current discussion on 1U colo
for remote ops/looking glass/etc.
Summary:
1) One respondent mentioned that Penguin Computing sells a complete
system with a serial console/management port.
I found the following links on Penguin's site:
http://penguincomputing.com/store/relion-130.php (+ other select models)
http://penguincomputing.com/support/serial_redirect.php
2) John Todd's excellent price break-down above is useful in the
"best-effort" context.
3) Numerous respondents helpfully pointed out that a number of
motherboards include a serial management/console port and have for
several years. This is useful in environments where self-built systems
are acceptable. In corporate environments, warranty and service issues
may make that undesirable.
4) One nanog member indicated that I am an idiot.
Personally, I recently priced intel server systems from a variety of major
vendors including Dell, Compaq/HP, IBM, and Sun (intel-based).
All of them offered (proprietary?) ethernet-based remote management.
None offered serial management.
Thanks to everyone for their responses.
Kelly
This is relevant, if tangential, to the current discussion on 1U colo
for remote ops/looking glass/etc.
[...]
4) One nanog member indicated that I am an idiot.
Personally, I recently priced intel server systems from a variety of major
vendors including Dell, Compaq/HP, IBM, and Sun (intel-based).
All of them offered (proprietary?) ethernet-based remote management.
None offered serial management.
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/pc_servers_pdf/88p9267.pdf
Take a look at page 34.
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/html/817-2025-13/chap2.html#pgfId-17069
"Idiot" is a strong word. But you do seem to have some reading
comprehension issues.
matt ghali
--matt@snark.net------------------------------------------<darwin><
Flowers on the razor wire/I know you're here/We are few/And far
between/I was thinking about her skin/Love is a many splintered
thing/Don't be afraid now/Just walk on in. #include <disclaim.h>
The pc-weasel does not work in all motherboards also.
K
The pc-weasel does not work in all motherboards also.
It does require a 5volt 32bit pci slot. and a ps/2 keyboard port, and it
won't work with an ami-winbios among other things...
In many respects the weasel is begining to show it's age, but many other
remote management cards I've used or attempted to use over the years
(compaq lights-out, ami-megarac) have either gone off the market, required
proprietary manangement software or were heavily geared towards mananging
windows boxen (I absolutely refuse to remotely co-locate windows
machines).
The killer feature (that I'm willing to pay monay for for one of these
products) is having a unit that can remotely power-cycle the box when the
os is totally hung. We used to do this (and still do), with serially
controlled power-strips but so many of the machines we sre buying take
redundant power sources, so that you end up needing twice as many remote
power-strips in order to turn off one box.
In all fairness to AMI they have a new management card which I have not
evaluated which they claim is 100% os independant, and has additional oob
connectivty options and battery backup. it also weighs in around $600.
Joel Jaeggli wrote:
The killer feature (that I'm willing to pay monay for for one of these
products) is having a unit that can remotely power-cycle the box when the
os is totally hung. We used to do this (and still do), with serially
Recent Compaq systems with integrated remote ILO provide a "virtual power button". In fact they also provide full graphical/console access over SSL and even booting of the remote system from a local CD/floppy/.iso image... the client is Java based too. I don't have long term experience with them or anything, it's just that I saw a demo recently and I have to admit to being quite impressed.
John Todd <jtodd@loligo.com> writes:
While I do prefer a "real" serial LOM kit (i.e.: Sun Microsystems)
...
RealWeasel is too expensive (even with the hypothetical NANOG
discount) though extremely nice. As previously mentioned, I can
purchase an entire system with serial console built in for that price.
If I had a vendor-specific piece of equipment that simply did not do
the Right Thing but was tied to a particular motherboard, then I'd
consider a RealWeasel.
Weasel, like the sun implementation, allows remote reboot of wedged
machines. This is key, particularly when running on an Intel platform
<cough>. If there are any PC serial console implementations that
allow one to do this, I'd like to hear about it, since I'm not aware
of such. Buying a serial console server *plus* a power cycler fills
my heart with hatred.
---Rob