We just switched from using Avocent/Cyclades to using Raritan for our terminal servers, and I am happier with the Raritan. I have used Raritan IP KVM's in the past and been happy, and the IT folks seem to like their new one. I found the Raritan terminal server docs much more complete, it's support for direct access to serial ports via ssh much more complete, its support for remote authentication (TACACS+) better, it's console sharing features better, etc. etc. I was surprised how much better we liked it than the other products we've used. --D On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Luke S Crawford <lsc@prgmr.com> wrote:
Joe Abley <jabley@hopcount.ca> writes:
What is everybody's favourite combination rack-mount VGA/USB KVM-over- IP and serial console concentrator in 2009?
I'm looking for something that will accommodate 8 or so 9600bps serial devices and about 12 VGA/USB devices, all reachable over IP via sane means (ssh, https, etc). Being able to trunk everything through cat5E/ RJ45 plant is not necessary; in this application everything is in the same cabinet.
I can't speak to the KVM over IP (for *NIX, they are obviously inferior to serial) but I do have some suggestions for the serial end.
Personally, I use an opengear cm4148; it seems to work fairly well.
If I only needed 8 ports, I'd still be using my solution from 2005, which was an 8 port rocketport serial card in a FreeBSD box. I only moved to the opengear because I need many more ports
I like both the opengear and the freebsd box because I can use ssh auth, I can log, and I can lock down each user so that a given private key can only view a certain port.
-- -- Darren Bolding -- -- darren@bolding.org --