North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Console Servers
Hi Try looking at this company's line of products: http://www.itouchcom.com/ they used to be Xyplex. Arie On Tue, 10 Sep 2002, Charles Sprickman wrote: > > Hello all, > > Here's what I've found out. It's a mix. If any one solution looks to > be the "winner" it's the roll-your-own solution. This is what I'm going > for since it's relatively cheap for low-density installs. The only > problem I'm finding is that it's tough to get a 1U box that has 2 PCI > slots open. 2U seems overkill. Since Compact Flash adapters are cheap > (about $20) and the cards themselves can be had for $59 (128MB), I'm going > to go diskless. I'll probably use conserver, but I'll be giving rtty a > try as well. > > If anyone has pointers to cheap 1U or 2U's, I'm all ears. Just need a > minimal box, don't need much CPU for this. > > With about 13 replies, I can report the following: > > > Lantronix - http://www.lantronix.com/products/cs/scs820_scs1620/index.html > > 1 vote for, one against. The complaint was that the Lantronix has a very > bad management interface. > > I also noted that BBC is using a mess of these at Telehouse... > > > Cyclades - http://www.cyclades.com/products/ts_series.php > > 4 for. > > "Under the covers, it's your average linux box with ttys0-ttys31. The > portslave software is pretty nice, too. Offline data buffering and the > ability to stick a hostname relationship with a serial port. [Ex: ssh2 > bob:[email protected] to connect to server myserver ]" > > Another poster is using the cyclades and the digi, and if I'm reading him > right, uses the Cyclades 48 port for smaller installations and the digi on > larger. > > > Digi - http://www.digi.com/solutions/devtermsrv/cm/index.shtml > > Looks to run about $1800 for 16 ports > > 1 for (kind of). The poster has a large installed base and it mostly > works and has a very high density. Apparently it's a two-piece system > where a cable fans out to boxes that further split it. But if one of the > splitters locks up, everything dasiy-chained through it locks up. This > person is now using Cyclades (please correct me if I'm wrong on this one). > > Equinox - 2 folks using these (cards). > > "We use the Equinox SST-128P (theoretically expandable to 128 ports, > comes in 16-port chunks) on Linux. Their linux drivers work well [...] > It's aPCI card with a cable to an external plugboard with the 16 RJ-45s." > > "I have had a bit of experience with Equinox (http://www.equinox.com/) > gear and can recommend them. Their serial hubs will talk serial to almost > anything out there and when plugged into cat5, tunnel those serial ports > back to physical mappings on a host system. [...] Geared more towards > industrial applications (what I'm using them for) but I have often > considered slapping one in our telecomm rack to map serial ports > on my local box to our various gear." > > Cisco - > > 2 suggestions to use a 2511 or a 3620 with 16 port async cards. The 2511 > would probably be a bit too slow if you enable ssh though... > > Livingston - > > 2 for an old portmaster behind an ssh-able box (if you have the space) > > Arula Systems (www.arula.com)- > > 1 vote for this, apparently a new company. > > Build your own - > > 5 for this solution. Everyone is using FreeBSD, and the RocketPort cards > seem to work better than the Cyclades cards under FreeBSD. 3 people are > using conserver (www.conserver.com) to make it easier to manage. Paul > Vixie shared the following (he gave permission to quote in full): > > "We use RocketPort, FreeBSD, IronSystems, and ISC rtty. > > http://www.rocketport.com/products/specs/rack16_foto.asp > http://www.rocketport.com/products/specs/specs.asp?product=rp_pci > > http://www.freebsd.org/ > http://www.ironsystems.com/ > > ftp://ftp.vix.com/pub/vixie/rtty-4.0.shar.gz > > This puts a BSD box in every POP, which is very useful for many reasons." > > So there you are... Thanks for all the responses. > > Charles >
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