[188070] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: remote serial console (IP to Serial)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mel Beckman)
Tue Mar 8 11:54:58 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Mel Beckman <mel@beckman.org>
To: greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 16:50:13 +0000
In-Reply-To: <CAKuzA1HUNMip0T3srdP0RhMtGJaurtb2UbxPOQ4doj_NvLscEA@mail.gmail.com>
Cc: North American Network Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
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 t=
he local end of the ssh tunnel, and keep each console open (which has the n=
ice side effect of capturing any log entries emitted).=20
All the parts and most instructions are available at https://www.adafruit.c=
om/product/1946. The only customization I added was a second USB serial por=
t to access my remote console, and the phone-home ssh script (of which ther=
e are many open source examples to choose from). Ting.com has very good cel=
lular 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 j=
ust $15/gigabyte after that).=20
-mel beckman
> On Mar 8, 2016, at 8:33 AM, greg whynott <greg.whynott@gmail.com> wrote:
>=20
> Thanks to all who responded to me, quite the flood of suggestions and
> options.
>=20
> 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 sti=
ll
> able to get OS updates. There will be no firewall in front of this devic=
e
> so it should have one itself.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> have a great day,
> greg
>=20
>=20
>=20
> On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists@gmail.=
com
>> wrote:
>=20
>> for singular serial .. there are many, do you want something that's
>> "appliance" or are you willing to deploy 18 raspnberry-pi-like
>> thingies?
>>=20
>> 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.
>>>=20
>>> Most sites has available IPs between the ISP and us (typically a /29) o=
r
>> 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 myse=
lf
>>> out. The requirement would be an Ethernet port, a serial port, and
>> SSH.
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> Anyone have any recommendations on something like this?
>>>=20
>>> thanks much,
>>> greg
>>=20
