[ale] Serial ports on 1U machines [was: Re: 1U server question]

Jim Lynch ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com
Wed Oct 24 13:48:53 EDT 2007


Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> On Wed 2007-10-24 08:32:42 -0400, Jim Lynch wrote:
>
>   
>> None of them, that I've looked at, mention a serial port which was
>> what I thought one might use to communicate with the bios.
>>     
>
> Really?  Can you provide links to the specs for machines that don't
> have serial ports?  Every 1U server i've dealt with in the last
> several years years (even the occasional Mac X-Serve) has at least one
> classic DB9M serial port.  Those things are super robust, very
> low-level, require minimal BIOS tweaking, and aren't published on the
> global internet (remote console via IP is crazy unless you've got a
> totally isolated LAN).
>
> IMHO, serial ports are the ideal for a system console that should be
> available in an emergency, and remain mostly untouched until then.
>
> Full Disclosure: a friend of mine and i use serial lines quite
> heavily, and wrote a package ("cereal") to conveniently manage
> rackfuls of serial-console machines.  It's introduced here:
>
>  https://www.debian-administration.org/articles/554
>
>         --dkg
>   
I don't remember the web site and I didn't bookmark it.  :-( The specs 
were pretty sketchy and they might have not bothered to mention it, if 
it is such a common feature.

Thanks for the input, fortunately the system I'm leaning towards has a 
serial port.

Jim.



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