also, serial? or usb? (see previous cisco usb console port discussion) On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

for singular serial .. there are many, do you want something that's "appliance" or are you willing to deploy 18 raspnberry-pi-like thingies?

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:30 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Recently I have taking over the responsibility of managing about 18 remote routers and firewalls. None of these have a console port for 'out of band' access accessible today.

Most sites has available IPs between the ISP and us (typically a /29) or a backup DSL connection available for use. I'd like to purchase a IP to Serial port device I can use for each location in the event I lock myself out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and SSH.

Anyone have any recommendations on something like this?

thanks much, greg

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 11:16 AM, Joe Hamelin <joe@nethead.com> wrote:

This little guy has proven handy for me. http://www.amazon.com/iPocket232-RS232-to-Ethernet-Converter/dp/B00K309TKY

a number of interesting options exist, but... 1) this will get deployed into 'some third world sh*thole' (aka, remote equinix facility 15+ minutes from your house) 2) someone has to maintain it long term (security patches, functionality fixes, dual power supplies?, redundant network access? gsm/cell/ethernet? ) 3) an appliance might pay for itself if you don't want lots of hands-on effort -chris

-- Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, +1 (360) 474-7474

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 7:35 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

...

also, serial? or usb? (see previous cisco usb console port discussion)

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

...

for singular serial .. there are many, do you want something that's "appliance" or are you willing to deploy 18 raspnberry-pi-like thingies?

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:30 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Recently I have taking over the responsibility of managing about 18 remote routers and firewalls. None of these have a console port for 'out of band' access accessible today.

Most sites has available IPs between the ISP and us (typically a /29) or a backup DSL connection available for use. I'd like to purchase a IP to Serial port device I can use for each location in the event I lock myself out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and SSH.

Anyone have any recommendations on something like this?

thanks much, greg

Serial port on the PI is TTL, so you’ll need some level shifters and/or ideally some opto-isolators or buffers to do a proper implementation. Owen

On Mar 8, 2016, at 08:32 , greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks to all who responded to me, quite the flood of suggestions and options.

Found a lot of 20 Digi CM32's on ebay for 35 dollars each, overkill but can't beat the price, going to look into those to make sure they are still able to get OS updates. There will be no firewall in front of this device so it should have one itself.

I like the raspberry pi idea... Would ensure perpetual security updates with the OS running on it, whereas I'm sure some of the vendors of commercial console products EOL support at some point. The fact it runs linux is inviting as we can add it to our monitoring systems.

have a great day, greg

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com

...

wrote:

...

for singular serial .. there are many, do you want something that's "appliance" or are you willing to deploy 18 raspnberry-pi-like thingies?

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:30 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Recently I have taking over the responsibility of managing about 18 remote routers and firewalls. None of these have a console port for 'out of band' access accessible today.

Most sites has available IPs between the ISP and us (typically a /29) or a backup DSL connection available for use. I'd like to purchase a IP to Serial port device I can use for each location in the event I lock myself out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and SSH.

Anyone have any recommendations on something like this?

thanks much, greg

Adafruit.com sells a USB to serial converter for $10 that works great (https://www.adafruit.com/product/954). Plus you can operate multiple serial ports this way. -mel beckman

On Mar 8, 2016, at 8:45 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

Serial port on the PI is TTL, so you’ll need some level shifters and/or ideally some opto-isolators or buffers to do a proper implementation.

Owen

...

On Mar 8, 2016, at 08:32 , greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks to all who responded to me, quite the flood of suggestions and options.

Found a lot of 20 Digi CM32's on ebay for 35 dollars each, overkill but can't beat the price, going to look into those to make sure they are still able to get OS updates. There will be no firewall in front of this device so it should have one itself.

I like the raspberry pi idea... Would ensure perpetual security updates with the OS running on it, whereas I'm sure some of the vendors of commercial console products EOL support at some point. The fact it runs linux is inviting as we can add it to our monitoring systems.

have a great day, greg

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com

...

wrote:

...

for singular serial .. there are many, do you want something that's "appliance" or are you willing to deploy 18 raspnberry-pi-like thingies?

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:30 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Recently I have taking over the responsibility of managing about 18 remote routers and firewalls. None of these have a console port for 'out of band' access accessible today.

Most sites has available IPs between the ISP and us (typically a /29) or a backup DSL connection available for use. I'd like to purchase a IP to Serial port device I can use for each location in the event I lock myself out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and SSH.

Anyone have any recommendations on something like this?

thanks much, greg

I just built a trivial raspberry pi gadget for about $100 that uses the $40 GSM 2G FONA cellular modem card and a ting.com SIM card to tunnel ssh back to my home network via cellular data. It's runs at just 128Kbps, but that's fine for a serial console. I use the Linux screen utility to connect to the local end of the ssh tunnel, and keep each console open (which has the nice side effect of capturing any log entries emitted). All the parts and most instructions are available at https://www.adafruit.com/product/1946. The only customization I added was a second USB serial port to access my remote console, and the phone-home ssh script (of which there are many open source examples to choose from). Ting.com has very good cellular data prices and is aimed at IoT connectivity, so it costs very little to deploy one of these gadgets ($6/mo if I use less than a megabyte, but just $15/gigabyte after that). -mel beckman

On Mar 8, 2016, at 8:33 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks to all who responded to me, quite the flood of suggestions and options.

Found a lot of 20 Digi CM32's on ebay for 35 dollars each, overkill but can't beat the price, going to look into those to make sure they are still able to get OS updates. There will be no firewall in front of this device so it should have one itself.

I like the raspberry pi idea... Would ensure perpetual security updates with the OS running on it, whereas I'm sure some of the vendors of commercial console products EOL support at some point. The fact it runs linux is inviting as we can add it to our monitoring systems.

have a great day, greg

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.com

...

wrote:

...

for singular serial .. there are many, do you want something that's "appliance" or are you willing to deploy 18 raspnberry-pi-like thingies?

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:30 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Recently I have taking over the responsibility of managing about 18 remote routers and firewalls. None of these have a console port for 'out of band' access accessible today.

Most sites has available IPs between the ISP and us (typically a /29) or a backup DSL connection available for use. I'd like to purchase a IP to Serial port device I can use for each location in the event I lock myself out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and SSH.

Anyone have any recommendations on something like this?

thanks much, greg

On 08/03/2016 17:34, Josh Luthman wrote:

Mikrotik does rfc2217 and this is their cheapest board today: http://routerboard.com/RB911-2Hn

Are you perhaps thinking of the http://routerboard.com/RB411 ? I don't think the model you linked has a serial port. We've deployed them successfully in a couple of places as a serial console. For a few extra bucks you can get a http://routerboard.com/RB450 which you can also use to connect up a few ethernet management ports, handle some dynamic routing/failover or even build a full OOB network. -- Graham Beneke

On Tue 2016-Mar-08 19:10:14 +0000, Gavin Henry <ghenry@suretec.co.uk> wrote:

Really love the Opengear IM range. We use IM4216's

I'm surprised no one's mentioned freetserv[1] yet. I haven't used them so don't consider this an endorsement, but on the surface it looks to be a good balance of "open / DIY" and "supportable". -- Hugo Slabbert | email, xmpp/jabber: hugo@slabnet.com pgp key: B178313E | also on Signal [1] https://freetserv.github.io/

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 2:45 PM, Royce Williams <royce@techsolvency.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:21 AM, Hugo Slabbert <hugo@slabnet.com> wrote:

...

On Tue 2016-Mar-08 19:10:14 +0000, Gavin Henry <ghenry@suretec.co.uk> wrote:

Really love the Opengear IM range. We use IM4216's

...

I'm surprised no one's mentioned freetserv[1] yet. I haven't used them so don't consider this an endorsement, but on the surface it looks to be a good balance of "open / DIY" and "supportable".

[1] https://freetserv.github.io/

This is great! A mainstream, patchable OS -- not locked into a half-baked OS or roll-your-own-TCP-stack hell I've seen in some remote serial and power devices.

<thanks jared>

On 9 March 2016 at 07:36, Doug McIntyre <merlyn@geeks.org> wrote: Hey,

I'd get something like a 1U ATOM server ($120 eBay) with small SSD ($18). Runup your favorite FOSS OS, and conserver. For more than the single real serialport, you can most likely fit a USB hub inside the case still, and hang a number of USB serial dongles off.

Rackmountable, maintainable, and conserver works great.

+1 on conserver. I think the greatest asset of conserver is, that it harmonises your OOB network into single interface. You can have different generation of OOB kit from different vendors with different level of functionality. Yet you get all the important functions from all of them. a) multiplexing of console access (very nice if person has went to lunch and you really need to access that console now) b) persistent logging of all console output (might be that crucial little detail which will allow vendor to solve your service request) Before I learned about conserver I wanted to use something like cyclades (or what ever it's name is now after two acquisitions) or opengear, just to get those two crucial features I need. But after conserver, I greatly prefer just using Cisco console ports, as then I can use device which is well known and already toolised by the organisation, and will offer all the WAN access options I need, with encryption when needed. But not having multiplexing and persistent logging earlier was deal-breaker, now it's immaterial. Sure opengear and cyclades probably can do few WAN options and probably some encryption, but operationally that would be chore to me, compared to rocking platform I already know. Big hand to who ever caused JNPR to add ISIS/CLNS to SRX (I think DTAG?), I wish someone would get JNPR to add async ports to SRX too, so that I'd have other option than CSCO for OOB. Big thanks to CSCO for still bringing async serial ports to CISCO4321, I know the demand must be rather small. -- ++ytti

If you're going to go that route, a PI is a much cheaper moboard to build on. Also consider the Pine64 (cheaper and more powerful than the PI)

On Mar 8, 2016, at 21:36, Doug McIntyre <merlyn@geeks.org> wrote:

...

...

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:21 AM, Hugo Slabbert <hugo@slabnet.com> wrote: I'm surprised no one's mentioned freetserv[1] yet. I haven't used them so don't consider this an endorsement, but on the surface it looks to be a good balance of "open / DIY" and "supportable". .. This is great! A mainstream, patchable OS -- not locked into a half-baked OS or roll-your-own-TCP-stack hell I've seen in some remote serial and

On Tue, Mar 08, 2016 at 10:45:30AM -0900, Royce Williams wrote: power devices. ..

Yes, instead of a hacked together hardwareboard, or appliance with firmware that never gets updated stuck in SSH v1 days (old Cisco?).. Freetserv looks interesting, but very costly once you add up the BOM.

I'd get something like a 1U ATOM server ($120 eBay) with small SSD ($18). Runup your favorite FOSS OS, and conserver. For more than the single real serialport, you can most likely fit a USB hub inside the case still, and hang a number of USB serial dongles off.

Rackmountable, maintainable, and conserver works great.

On 08 Mar 2016, at 16:34, Josh Luthman <josh@imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote:

AirConsole has an "all in one" solution with software and such.

+1 for AirConsole, use it for many situations and works really well. Regards, Michael Rave Crossivity

You can use a 2600 or 2800 with the 16 port serial module. Stephen Satchell wrote:

On 03/08/2016 07:30 AM, greg whynott wrote:

...

I'd like to purchase a IP to Serial port device I can use for each location in the event I lock myself out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and SSH.

I've used Cisco 2500 routers for this type of service, using the AUX port and a roll-over cable to connect to the target device. I'm talking 2501s mostly, not the 2511 or 2508, unless you need to control more than one device at a specific location.

Ethernet, AUX port, SSH, firewall. Updates are sketchy, but these are mature devices.

For a long time I used an Equinox SST which was a PCI card and a plugboard of (daisy-chain-able up to 128) 16 x RJ-45 serial ports. It was handy in one machine room, usually a Cat-5 RJ-45 cable with a D-connector was all that was needed. Unfortunately the Linux driver seems to have disappeared into the sands of time though it would work with something like SuSE 9.x, maybe 10.x. That is, 2.4 maybe 2.6 kernels, I don't think SuSE mattered but that's what I used. With the driver and hardware installed it would present as a bunch of /dev/ttyQ?? devices. I'd use an xterm workalike 'eterm' which could take a device on the command line and it'd work. I think screen could also work but firing up separate terminal windows for different ports was convenient. And eterm was rather pretty, not sure what happened to it, but you could probably use kermit or cu etc in a pinch with enough magic. I'm curious if anyone still uses this and perhaps got it working with more modern kernels? I believe it's mentioned in the newer kernel build configuration (make xconfig, whatever) but doesn't work. Not a big deal to install an old OS on a spare machine. Or perhaps even in a virtual machine with some sort of device passthru? Never looked into that. No idea where you'd find the hardware but it was a neat device and if you can't find their driver stuff I could send it to you as a tarball tho I think it's still up on whatever Equinox became. Ok here it is I noted it: http://www.connectivity.avocent.com/drivers/superserial/eqnx_4.12d.asp So you'd just login to that machine and fire up windows to access the Equinox/SST serial ports (to answer the remote part of the question.) -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*