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Ask Slashdot: Tools For Managing Multiple Serial Console Servers?

Posted by timothy on from the many-roads-to-rome dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I've recently been charged with updating our existing serial console access tools. We have 12 racks of servers each with a console server in it (OpenGear, ACS, and a few others). Several of these systems host virtual machines which are also configured to have 'serial' management (KVM, virt serial). In total it comes to about 600 'systems.' All the systems also have remote power management (various vendors). Right now our team has a set of home grown scripts and a cobbled together database for keeping this all together. Today any admin can simply ssh into the master, run 'manage hostname console' and automatically get a serial console or run 'manage hostname power off' to cut the power to a system. I'd rather use some tools with more of a community than just the 4 of us. What tool(s) should I move my group onto for remote serial/power management?"

4 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You haven't identified any missing features or existing anti-features in your current toolset.
    The only hint of anything wrong with your setup is "I'd rather use some tools with more of a community than just the 4 of us."

    Q: What tool(s) should I move my group onto for remote serial/power management?
    A: Yours. Clean the tools up, open source them, and market them. Your community will grow.

  2. Conman and Powerman by decepetion · · Score: 5, Informative

    HPC scale: https://computing.llnl.gov/linux/downloads.html

  3. if it ain't broke... by tudorxpopescu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So... let me get this straight, you have a system which is easy to use and works just fine, and is written in house. Obviously, you want to change it... because? Jeez.

  4. rtty, old school technology by Above · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a little known, but very useful program called rtty. You can find it at ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/rtty/rtty-4.0.shar.gz. Yes, it was last updated in 2003. Yes, there are package for major open source distributions.

    Here's serial consoles on the cheap:

    Buy multiport USB to Serial devices. They are a USB hub with a bunch of USB to Serial adapters hung off of them. Here's a 16-porter for an example: http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Serial-Cards-Adapters/~ICUSB23216F

    Hang them off a low end box, I like half-depth Intel Atom servers with lots of USB ports.

    Run rtty. It records each console to a log file 24x7, and allows multiple people to connect at the same time (including typing).