[geeks] NEEDED: terminal for my Suns...

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 @ 17:50 -0700, Nadine said:

> > Well, I saw a 2509 for $20, and the cable part for it was $20, this my
> > comment about it being the same price. That's really not a problem, I
> > was just commenting that the cable setup will cost more than the unit
> > itself.
> 
> No special cables are needed--if you have a crimper and RJ45
> connectors, you can turn any network cable into the correct pin-out.

I don't have any networking gear any more.  

That's besides the point though: what I mean is none of my equipment
uses RJ-45, it all uses DB-25 serial ports.

> > RJ-45 is smaller, so I can see why they switched. Hopefully you can keep
> > the monkeys from cramming network cables into the RJ-45 serial ports.
> 
> They switched when most modems went away from DB-25--the 2905 is
> intended for modem banks.

When did most modems do that?

> > What I meant was does it give good speed without dropouts and other
> > issues.
> 
> Yes they do.  We had tons of these things all over Cisco internally
> for use with all our Suns, with IP aliasing set up.  I'm also pretty
> sure, with the right IOS on them, you can have SSH v1 as well.  

You seem to be talking about machine->network->2905->serial->host speed.

That's good, but if I get one it would be used like my Portmaster
usually is:

	One terminal->Portmaster->host serial ports.

I just use it as a console multiplexor, only rarely ever using it over
the net.

> If you have stronger security requirements, slap it behind some other
> highly reliable host on a private network and use that as a bastion.
> It amazes me to find such craptacular lack of OOB access [0] in data
> centers when the 2905 is so fscking cheap now.  Let me rephrase--it
> just pisses me off.  

Well, the industry isn't helping either, with increasing numbers of
devices and systems that cannot be talked to over serial lines.

It's pretty alarming how much equipment now requires a web browser for
configuration. Worse, it's usually listening on a fixed subnet, and
there is no way to make it choose another.

Tons of printers now are impossible to communicate with, at least not
fully, unless you use proprietary software or a web browser.

That's just scary.

Something very stupid that I think is going to happen: a total drop of
serial support in nearly all systems, and everything, even boot ROMs,
move to WWW only interfacing.

> The folks at last $gov_job had HEADS on all their Suns.

I've frequently removed the graphics cards from servers, simply because
it is one less part to fail and generate heat.

I wish you could do that with a PC.


-- 
shannon           | We are all of us in the gutter, some of us looking at the 
                  | stars.  
                  |         -- Oscar Wilde