[187484] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Devices with only USB console port - Need a Console Server
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Loron)
Tue Feb 2 15:27:25 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:27:23 -0800
From: Peter Loron <peterl@standingwave.org>
To: Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net>
In-Reply-To: <20160202141148.GG25581@puck.nether.net>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
A possible alternative, although probably not one you'd want to leave in
place permanently:
http://www.get-console.com/airconsole/
-Pete
On 2016-02-02 06:11, Jared Mauch wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 07, 2015 at 10:15:28PM +0000, Erik Sundberg wrote:
>> We have one of these nice new and fancy Cisco ASR920-24SZ, just
>> realized it doesn't have an RJ45 Console port only USB. When we deploy
>> devices at our pop we wire the console port to a terminal\console
>> server, well that doesn't work for a usb console device.
>>
>> So what is everyone doing for out of band management via the console
>> when it's a usb only device?
>> Is there something I am missing?
>
> Likely not. I've seen most equipment makers start to ignore serial
> console.
> The default these appears to be moving to a uBoot/PXE style network
> setup
> where you push an image and such via TFTP/DHCP into the device.
>
>> Is there a console server for USB?
>
> I've not seen one show up, but there are other devices like this
> which the DIY industry has started to build:
>
> http://freetserv.github.io/
>
> I have a side business i'm tinkering with and these are open source
> hardware. If there is interest, I'd be willing to build these in
> volume and
> drive the cost down.
>
> It would not be difficult to do a giant USB hub that was similar.
>
>> Does cisco make an USB to RJ45 Jack adapter?
>
> Yes, but I'm always concerned about what boot messages are lost
> or things you can't quite do properly (like send break, etc) to get
> into
> the device as you're waiting for the USB to initalize, driver to
> present
> to OS, etc.. Maybe they spent more time thinking about this than I
> am aware, but it's something I've not had a proper solution explained
> to me
> for.
>
> - Jared
