I'm happy to report that I finally have access to a Cisco device with a USB console (a gently-used C1900 router), so I can experiment a bit with it. I also have had an interesting briefing about how these USB console interconnects came to be at Cisco, and some caveats.
As I understand it, essentially they have embedded a USB-to-EIA-232 bridge chip into the Cisco device. When you connect a PC, and you have suitable drivers, it simply appears to your machine to be a simple COM port. (I'm presuming that a MAC will see s suitable TTY and etc.)
When the serial bridge chip comes on-line, it steals the line console 0 data path from the RJ-45 console connection(!). I need to check if that means that some speed-shifting is also happening. That is, if my line console 0 is set for 9600 8-N-1, does it shift to 115,200 when it swings to the USB channel?
When the USB chip powers down (when you unplug the USB), the data path is supposed to drop back to the RJ-45 port. But, if you leave the USB connected, you could find yourself without access to the RJ45 console for remote administration. Fortunately, there is an idle timer to revert back to RJ45, but this wasn't implemented in hardware in the earliest versions of equipment to have the USB console. I'll summarize more of the details in the next couple weeks. I'm excited to finally get a chance to explore this, since many folks have asked me questions about it already.
This sounds like a great addition for quick desktop administration, or for jacking into equipment with your laptop in a data center. After all, fewer laptops have a built-in DE-9 connection these days, and everything has a USB port, right? With a USB console, you only need the single USB(A)-to-USBmini(B) cable. But, it hasn't (yet) become a ubiquitous connection, so we probably still also need to carry our USB-to-Serial dongle, and also our DE-9 to Cisco-RJ45 cable as well.
Check back in August to read about the results of my hacking.
20120529
Dell R6xx, 7xx series servers (iDRAC and Console)
Here are two clues that will help you plan for installing the new Dell server families.
They seem to be great servers... lots of capacity for RAM, lots of CPU strength, and I love the rack mounting rail system. I also like the iDRAC service processors.
What's not to like? The back of the chassis is too thick (or the DE9 console port is recessed too far). Either way, most of the serial console adapters (DE9 to RJ45) won't fit well, and provide reliable connections, unless you grind down the cases of the adapters. And, since the adapter vendors don't offer to sell you a "trimmed" version, that job is going to cost you extra, somehow. Hey, maybe we can get the intern to do it? ;-)
I'm *really* glad that the serial consoles are still on the back of the servers, but if you are going to put them there, it seems to me that making the serial adapters fit should be part of the plan to have them on the server.
The one adapter I've found that works on the R620 series servers is from Cyclades (ADB0036). Yes, you can still get them from CDW. Fortunately, our latest batch went into racks with Cyclades TS2000. But, I did need to modify SO MANY of the Lantronix adapters that I made a custom jig for a Dremel router, to get consistent results.
Clue number two: On the R620, ttyS0 goes tot he iDRAC, and ttyS1 goes to the DE9 on the rear of the server. You will need to start an agetty for BOTH of these, if you want to be able to use both of them.
My other big projects are nearly done, and I plan to post much more often this summer. Thanks for reading.
They seem to be great servers... lots of capacity for RAM, lots of CPU strength, and I love the rack mounting rail system. I also like the iDRAC service processors.
What's not to like? The back of the chassis is too thick (or the DE9 console port is recessed too far). Either way, most of the serial console adapters (DE9 to RJ45) won't fit well, and provide reliable connections, unless you grind down the cases of the adapters. And, since the adapter vendors don't offer to sell you a "trimmed" version, that job is going to cost you extra, somehow. Hey, maybe we can get the intern to do it? ;-)
I'm *really* glad that the serial consoles are still on the back of the servers, but if you are going to put them there, it seems to me that making the serial adapters fit should be part of the plan to have them on the server.
The one adapter I've found that works on the R620 series servers is from Cyclades (ADB0036). Yes, you can still get them from CDW. Fortunately, our latest batch went into racks with Cyclades TS2000. But, I did need to modify SO MANY of the Lantronix adapters that I made a custom jig for a Dremel router, to get consistent results.
Clue number two: On the R620, ttyS0 goes tot he iDRAC, and ttyS1 goes to the DE9 on the rear of the server. You will need to start an agetty for BOTH of these, if you want to be able to use both of them.
My other big projects are nearly done, and I plan to post much more often this summer. Thanks for reading.
20111102
My first impressions of the Redpark serial cable and Get Console
I'm reviewing them together, as I don't see an easy way to use the cable with another app (yet).
My first attempts were hampered by some Bluetooth weirdness between my iPad 1 and my ZAGGmate keyboard. A hard-reset of the iPad seemed to straighten that out. Since then, I have had good luck using the ZAGGmate with Get Console in both portrait and landscape modes. I'm a bit let down that the top speed is 'only' 57.6 Kbps, as I have a handful of console ports running at 115.2 Kbps. That said, it does perform well at those speeds which it does support.
There is no built-in method to email your log files, but you can copy them to the cut-and-paste buffer,and then paste it into the email app of your choice.
It makes the Escape key sequences visible! This is a BIG plus in my book! If you are working with conserver, this will help you spot devices which are prone to fill your logs with extra characters.
The earlier assertion that the application will only work with Cisco devices seems to be incorrect! That is, with a proper adapter, you can connect the cable to almost any device. Using a CFDTE92 adapter, I can connect to the DE9M com port on most Intel-based servers. (Check my Cisco console connection guide page for more clues, http://www.conserver.com/consoles/Cisco/ciscocons.html )
The cable is about 6' long, with a slender cable. The jacket feels a bit like Teflon, and the RJ45M connector has a molded strain relief, which will likely improve the service life. (That would be great, given the cost of the cable!) It is lightweight, and it looks like a high-quality part. The folks at Redpark have been known for the high quality of their products in the past, and I expect good things from this new product.
I have tried the combination with a variety of non-network devices as well, and I seem to be able to talk to them without needing to do any fussing with the signaling wires. I can't promise that it will work with anything, but the Get Console app running 'stand-alone' (without needing to connect to their website) seems to be a useful basic terminal emulator, if you need a wired serial connection. The cable has made a good addition to my iPad gear bag.
Testing the Get Console website service will need to wait for another post.
My first attempts were hampered by some Bluetooth weirdness between my iPad 1 and my ZAGGmate keyboard. A hard-reset of the iPad seemed to straighten that out. Since then, I have had good luck using the ZAGGmate with Get Console in both portrait and landscape modes. I'm a bit let down that the top speed is 'only' 57.6 Kbps, as I have a handful of console ports running at 115.2 Kbps. That said, it does perform well at those speeds which it does support.
There is no built-in method to email your log files, but you can copy them to the cut-and-paste buffer,and then paste it into the email app of your choice.
It makes the Escape key sequences visible! This is a BIG plus in my book! If you are working with conserver, this will help you spot devices which are prone to fill your logs with extra characters.
The earlier assertion that the application will only work with Cisco devices seems to be incorrect! That is, with a proper adapter, you can connect the cable to almost any device. Using a CFDTE92 adapter, I can connect to the DE9M com port on most Intel-based servers. (Check my Cisco console connection guide page for more clues, http://www.conserver.com/consoles/Cisco/ciscocons.html )
The cable is about 6' long, with a slender cable. The jacket feels a bit like Teflon, and the RJ45M connector has a molded strain relief, which will likely improve the service life. (That would be great, given the cost of the cable!) It is lightweight, and it looks like a high-quality part. The folks at Redpark have been known for the high quality of their products in the past, and I expect good things from this new product.
I have tried the combination with a variety of non-network devices as well, and I seem to be able to talk to them without needing to do any fussing with the signaling wires. I can't promise that it will work with anything, but the Get Console app running 'stand-alone' (without needing to connect to their website) seems to be a useful basic terminal emulator, if you need a wired serial connection. The cable has made a good addition to my iPad gear bag.
Testing the Get Console website service will need to wait for another post.
20111013
October Double-header! Two new useful apps!
I finally got a Redpark serial cable, and the Get Console app, and it's almost everything I wanted to make my iPad a quick tool for accessing all sorts of serial consoles!
But, I also finally found the Blogger app, which will make it easier to update my blog when I've got stuff to say. AND, I'll be able to do it from my older, pre-3g iPhone! Thank you Google!
The Blogger app also pointed out that I had yet to actually publish a couple older blog articles! That was easy to fix! Now I can get back to testing the Get Console app and the Redpark cable.
UPDATE, Spring 2012: The Get Console app has been handy on the iPad, and the Redpark cable has been reliable, so far. However, I've run into bluetooth reliability issues when using the Zagg keyboard with the iPad. When the keyboard is working, this threesome is a GREAT combination for field work.
But, I also finally found the Blogger app, which will make it easier to update my blog when I've got stuff to say. AND, I'll be able to do it from my older, pre-3g iPhone! Thank you Google!
The Blogger app also pointed out that I had yet to actually publish a couple older blog articles! That was easy to fix! Now I can get back to testing the Get Console app and the Redpark cable.
UPDATE, Spring 2012: The Get Console app has been handy on the iPad, and the Redpark cable has been reliable, so far. However, I've run into bluetooth reliability issues when using the Zagg keyboard with the iPad. When the keyboard is working, this threesome is a GREAT combination for field work.
20110810
Finally, a serial cable for my ipad!
More precisely, there is a hardware cable (cost is about $60 US) from Redpark, which plugs into the 30-pin ipod/iphone/ipad docking connector, and does all the right stuff to provide an RS-232 serial connection. But, to make practical use of it, you also need the GetConsole iPad application. And it all works without jailbreaking your device!
The application should work on the iPhone as well, but I don't have a cable yet to play with the application. I expect to get them both next month, but I have been tracking the progress getting the cable to the market for a few months!
The Redpark folks have a long history of development for Apple systems, and their legacy includes the Keyspan RS-232 serial adapters, another favorite of mine from many years ago.
The GetConsole application is part of a larger project, though, which may become a great field service tool! I'm a big fan of secure remote access to serial consoles (especially the Conserver console server management application). While the GetConsole application will let you attach your IOS device to the serial console of some other device for local interaction, the application also has the ability to be accessed via the GetConsole website. In this way, a field engineer could use his phone to connect to a serial console, but a senior engineer could then use that the phone network to reach through the phone to interact with the serial port.
I look forward to the chance to play with the cable and the application. I'll likely get the Cisco RJ45 version, since I have a large collection of adapters for them (or you can build your own with these adapter schematics). I'm curious if the application will work on my V2 iPhone (which is limited to running IOS 3.x), or if the application requires IOS 4.x. Either way, I remain excited, and I'll post an update in a month or so.
The application should work on the iPhone as well, but I don't have a cable yet to play with the application. I expect to get them both next month, but I have been tracking the progress getting the cable to the market for a few months!
The Redpark folks have a long history of development for Apple systems, and their legacy includes the Keyspan RS-232 serial adapters, another favorite of mine from many years ago.
The GetConsole application is part of a larger project, though, which may become a great field service tool! I'm a big fan of secure remote access to serial consoles (especially the Conserver console server management application). While the GetConsole application will let you attach your IOS device to the serial console of some other device for local interaction, the application also has the ability to be accessed via the GetConsole website. In this way, a field engineer could use his phone to connect to a serial console, but a senior engineer could then use that the phone network to reach through the phone to interact with the serial port.
I look forward to the chance to play with the cable and the application. I'll likely get the Cisco RJ45 version, since I have a large collection of adapters for them (or you can build your own with these adapter schematics). I'm curious if the application will work on my V2 iPhone (which is limited to running IOS 3.x), or if the application requires IOS 4.x. Either way, I remain excited, and I'll post an update in a month or so.
20101231
Ring out the old? Serial Consoles STILL going strong!
The last couple of weeks have been very busy, helping acquire a small company for a customer. The majority of my role included assessing, and then upgrading the network gear, as well as helping with the various server gear.
After the initial assessment, I installed Conserver on a local host, and I re-deployed a Cisco 3640 with a pair of NM-32A asynch modules. The serial consoles were VITAL to take over network gear for which the previous administrator could offer no admin credentials. Some of the network gear was also equipment with older operating software, which I had little experience with, so I needed to engage technical help from the equipment vendor. The first two questions were always "Can we do a remote desktop conference?" and "Do you have access to the serial console?" It's always nice to be able to answer "yes" to both questions. There is also some comfort in knowing that Conserver will be logging the session, so you can look back over the logs after the fact to review what happened.
During this session, I was also working with some Juniper gear, and I'm REALLY happy that Juniper also use the RJ45 wiring schema that Cisco uses. I'm a big fan of that symmetrical wiring format.
It's worth noting that SUN Microsystems newer machines (starting back with the Netra T-1) have also used this wiring schema for their TTYs0, and some Lantronix console servers have also used the wiring schema. Opengear has made this wiring schema an option for many of their products, and it is becoming the primary wiring format for some of their newest products. This makes hooking up the majority of the equipment that I work simple, AND it gives me some flexibility to choose different hardware vendors with confidence that they will drop into my existing infrastructure nicely.
Finally, I wanted to point out that serial port capability is also still being built into embedded processors! I've had some time to hack with the ATMEL processors used in the Arduino family of development boards. One port is normally integrated with a bootloader and connected to a USB interface (typically with an FTDI interface chip) to make it easy to talk to the processor. However, these 3.3-to-5 volt "TTL" interfaces can also be tied to an RS-232 interface chip when the ATMEL chip is plugged into an embedded system. (As an alternative, there is another pair of pins which can be a data-only 9600 bps (max) serial port to communicate between the ATMEL chip an another device. And the larger ATMEGA actually has 3 extra serial ports available!) My newest project is to make a small processor which can communicate via a serial interface to another system.
As we enter 2011, the venerable RS-232 serial interface lives on. I wish you all health and happiness, and hopefully a bit of prosperity as well.
-Z-
After the initial assessment, I installed Conserver on a local host, and I re-deployed a Cisco 3640 with a pair of NM-32A asynch modules. The serial consoles were VITAL to take over network gear for which the previous administrator could offer no admin credentials. Some of the network gear was also equipment with older operating software, which I had little experience with, so I needed to engage technical help from the equipment vendor. The first two questions were always "Can we do a remote desktop conference?" and "Do you have access to the serial console?" It's always nice to be able to answer "yes" to both questions. There is also some comfort in knowing that Conserver will be logging the session, so you can look back over the logs after the fact to review what happened.
During this session, I was also working with some Juniper gear, and I'm REALLY happy that Juniper also use the RJ45 wiring schema that Cisco uses. I'm a big fan of that symmetrical wiring format.
It's worth noting that SUN Microsystems newer machines (starting back with the Netra T-1) have also used this wiring schema for their TTYs0, and some Lantronix console servers have also used the wiring schema. Opengear has made this wiring schema an option for many of their products, and it is becoming the primary wiring format for some of their newest products. This makes hooking up the majority of the equipment that I work simple, AND it gives me some flexibility to choose different hardware vendors with confidence that they will drop into my existing infrastructure nicely.
Finally, I wanted to point out that serial port capability is also still being built into embedded processors! I've had some time to hack with the ATMEL processors used in the Arduino family of development boards. One port is normally integrated with a bootloader and connected to a USB interface (typically with an FTDI interface chip) to make it easy to talk to the processor. However, these 3.3-to-5 volt "TTL" interfaces can also be tied to an RS-232 interface chip when the ATMEL chip is plugged into an embedded system. (As an alternative, there is another pair of pins which can be a data-only 9600 bps (max) serial port to communicate between the ATMEL chip an another device. And the larger ATMEGA actually has 3 extra serial ports available!) My newest project is to make a small processor which can communicate via a serial interface to another system.
As we enter 2011, the venerable RS-232 serial interface lives on. I wish you all health and happiness, and hopefully a bit of prosperity as well.
-Z-
20101113
New info about OpenGear from the USENIX LISA '10 conference
I'm just back from the USENIX LISA '10 conference (San Jose, CA). OpenGear was there (for their third year), but they were the only Console Server vendor in the hall. As a result, they got a significant amount of mindshare from the attendees. I spent a good deal of time asking questions, and I'm happy to say that they had sent some technically-deep folks to staff the booth. (They also have a lot of Conserver experience, which qualifies for extra points in my book. ;-) I wish more vendors would have come to the LISA conference. With a great international draw, the LISA attendees have significant technical depth and come from some very large corporations. It would seem to be a fertile ground to collect contact info, and provide information to be carried back to universities and big corporations. We'll see you next year in Boston, right?
It's another example of Moore's Law... even in the last year, there are fewer Console Server vendors (Emerson acquired Avocent (who had acquired Cyclades...)), and OpenGear has made many significant improvements in their hardware and software. But, more important to me, is that OpenGear has continued to be attentive and responsive to their customers, not only for me!
What's in it for you, as a Console Server user/customer? Plenty! Customer needs have driven them to provide some really interesting new hardware this year, and they have also given customers the option to use the OpenGear RJ-45 wiring scheme, or order hardware matching the Cisco/Lantronix/Sun symmetrical RJ-45 scheme. Thanks to Jared Mallett and Todd Rychecky for sharing good info with booth visitors, here's some of what I heard;
They have upgraded the CPU and storage in their smaller devices!
They have a 4-port model, running on DC power...
Some smaller units have 2 network connections (dual Ethernet, or Eth and G3 cell modem!)
They have also made provisions for external FLASH for logging, etc.
Security improvements include Single Sign-On, and FIPS 140-2 Crypto module
Participating in the RSA Secured Partner Program SecurID integration
Two weeks ago, I learned of a project that wanted a 4-port device... last week, OpenGear showed me their Dual Ethernet 4-port device, shipping by default with Cisco RJ-45 wiring. Problem solved!
As we approach the holiday season, the daylight gets shorter, and (with the holidays, and folks taking extra time off) the calendar itself seems to get shorter, and deadlines start to loom large. If you need console servers, take a look at OpenGear, and see if you can find what you need quickly.
Happy holidays! -Zonker-
It's another example of Moore's Law... even in the last year, there are fewer Console Server vendors (Emerson acquired Avocent (who had acquired Cyclades...)), and OpenGear has made many significant improvements in their hardware and software. But, more important to me, is that OpenGear has continued to be attentive and responsive to their customers, not only for me!
What's in it for you, as a Console Server user/customer? Plenty! Customer needs have driven them to provide some really interesting new hardware this year, and they have also given customers the option to use the OpenGear RJ-45 wiring scheme, or order hardware matching the Cisco/Lantronix/Sun symmetrical RJ-45 scheme. Thanks to Jared Mallett and Todd Rychecky for sharing good info with booth visitors, here's some of what I heard;
They have upgraded the CPU and storage in their smaller devices!
They have a 4-port model, running on DC power...
Some smaller units have 2 network connections (dual Ethernet, or Eth and G3 cell modem!)
They have also made provisions for external FLASH for logging, etc.
Security improvements include Single Sign-On, and FIPS 140-2 Crypto module
Participating in the RSA Secured Partner Program SecurID integration
Two weeks ago, I learned of a project that wanted a 4-port device... last week, OpenGear showed me their Dual Ethernet 4-port device, shipping by default with Cisco RJ-45 wiring. Problem solved!
As we approach the holiday season, the daylight gets shorter, and (with the holidays, and folks taking extra time off) the calendar itself seems to get shorter, and deadlines start to loom large. If you need console servers, take a look at OpenGear, and see if you can find what you need quickly.
Happy holidays! -Zonker-
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