Re: [Sheflug] Console management for linux clusters etc

[Steve Fisher <steve.fisher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> For some reason Mailamn doesn't like Ian Durkacz 
> <I.Durkacz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> .  I've forwarded his e-mail for him so 
> that everyone can read it.....
>
>
>
> Hello sheflug,
>
> I have a question about console management that I'd like to pose here 
> in order to find out how other people solve the problem.
>
> My question is: what is a 'good' way to provide a 'console service' to 
> racks of many Linux machines? (That is, the objective here is to 
> allow remote access to the system console of each machine.) 
>
> Where I work, the current solution for this is to use 
> single-point-of-access linux boxes that run conserver 
> (www.conserver.com), and which are fitted with 32-way serial cards 
> that go to all of the client machines. So the idea is that you can 
> ssh to a conserver box, then run 'console' to get a console on any 
> target machine. But the problem is that the 32-way serial cards aren't 
> being manufactured any more (they *were* made by Cyclades) - so this 
> is no longer a supportable option.
>
> I have been doing some experimentation with KVM-over-LAN (this works, 
> but has limited scope), and also IPMI serial-over-lan (this works 
> very nicely at IPMI v2.0 - but most of our boxes only have IPMI 
> v1.5); but what I'd like to know is what other people are doing to 
> solve what must be a very common requirement.
>
> I do *not* have any experience with commercially-available terminal 
> servers; any specific recommendations involving those would be most 
> helpful. (One concern I have about those in general is how well they 
> can be integrated into our current authentication environment; cost 
> per console is also another concern.) But I would appreciate any 
> advice, information and/or pointers - really what I am asking here 
> is: what do other people do?
>
> In detail, if it matters, the h/w I am looking at this in this context 
> are racks of Dell PowerEdge machines (mostly x8xx models), all 
> running Fedora Core 5.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
>
> Ian
>
> _______________________________________________
>         Sheffield Linux User's Group
>   http://www.sheflug.org.uk/mailfaq.html
>  GNU - The choice of a complete generation
>
>
>   
Have you looked at VNC? I couldn't work without it on my work (windoze) 
machines.

Steve

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 GNU - The choice of a complete generation