Re: cross-connecting console ports?
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@timetraveller.org Linux counter ID #16440
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