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From: BILLW@mathom.cisco.com (WilliamChops Westfield)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.sys.cisco
Subject: Re: unusual terminal server need
Message-ID: <33075@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 8 Mar 91 04:37:55 GMT
Sender: daemon@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Lines: 37


    What we really want to do is hook up the console ports to a terminal
    server and have people telnet/rlogin to the terminal server and then
    come out through the serial ports--exactly the reverse of how you'd
    normally use a terminal server.  I'm told that most terminal servers
    don't have the ability to accept incoming telnet/rlogin sessions in
    the quantity necessary to make this viable.

Interestingly enough, this is almost exactly how cisco's internal
router test labs are set up.  - racks full of various routers with
their consoles connected up to some of our terminal servers.  We
then access the consoles via telnet from X windows on various machines,
so that you can have the consoles of various machines (with logs) sitting
in front of you at the same time.  It works great...

I don't know that I'd say that "most terminal servers dont support
incoming telnet" - I know of few that don't.  I like to think that we
do it better than many - for example, you can limit which systems can
connect to a port, and require them to provide a username/password
before they actually get to send data to the port (handy both for
security, AND for figuring out who is using that port when someone
else needs it!)  Check in your terminal server manual under 'configuring
non-terminal devices".


    Anyone out there have some suggestions?

One thing to watch out for is that power-cycling the terminal server
may generate what looks like a BREAK to the systems connected to the
ports.  This can drop them into a nice ROM monitor, effectively crashing
them from the users point of view.  You either need to diable BREAKs on
those systems, or use some sort of external pullup to prevent the BREAKs
from appearing...

Bill Westfield
cisco Systems.
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