[149316] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Console Server Recommendation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (George Bonser)
Wed Feb 1 13:16:48 2012
From: George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com>
To: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 18:15:35 +0000
In-Reply-To: <05509014-2199-43C0-9BD2-AF4744934458@delong.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
> It's a product you can download, compile, configure and it works out of
> the box.
>=20
> It is pretty well supported by the authors and they have been very
> responsive to each and every question/feature/other request I have made
> to them, no matter how stupid. In fact, it has been better supported in
> my experience than most boxed software.
>=20
> conserver doesn't replace the opengear products, it's a software
> package that sits next to them and provides increased functionality of
> the type you suggested would be desirable.
>=20
> It's no more difficult to configure conserver than to set up the DNS to
> do what you were suggesting with SSH.
On Ubuntu Linux: =20
apt-get install conserver-server
apt-get install conserver-client
You need one conserver server and can have as many clients as you want. =20
Getting the software installed is pretty much dead simple. Configuring it i=
s pretty darned intuitive, too.
> I think you are misunderstanding and thinking I propose conserver as a
> replacement for MRV/Cyclades/etc. I do not. I propose it as a way to
> get most of the features you wanted that aren't present in those boxes
> by adding it to them.
Exactly. It is extremely handy for providing a standard interface / set of=
features if you have a mix of different console server hardware. It is si=
mply a layer of abstraction that lives above the console server hardware an=
d allows you to buffer content, share sessions, etc.
=20
> It has the additional advantage that it can provide the same
> functionality transparently across a wide variety of tserv hardware so
> that you can use multiple manufacturers over time and keep that
> transparent for the most part.
+1 sure makes things simple if you have different gear at different sites =
or have changed vendors over the years and have legacy stuff still in servi=
ce.
