Compaq Integrated Remote Console (IRC) -vs- Lights-Out Card

Greg McFarlane

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Jun 4, 2002, 7:33:01 PM6/4/02

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We have 16 rack-mounted Compaq servers that we need to monitor remotely. One
choice is to put Lights-Out Cards in all of them and connect these to
a LAN switch. The other choice is to connect the serial ports of all
the servers to a terminal server and use IRC. Has anyone had any
reliability problems with IRC? What is the preferred choice?

Greg

p...@icke-reklam.ipsec.nu

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Jun 5, 2002, 3:30:46 AM6/5/02

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Arn't you talking about un*x systems ???
Whats needed more then sshd to do just about anything ??

> Greg

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Michael Heiming

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Jun 5, 2002, 6:09:22 PM6/5/02

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p...@icke-reklam.ipsec.nu (<adken6$8q7$4...@nyheter.crt.se>):

> Greg McFarlane <gr...@iname.com> wrote:
>> We have 16 rack-mounted Compaq servers that we need to monitor
>> remotely. One choice is to put Lights-Out Cards in all of them

[..]

> Arn't you talking about un*x systems ???
> Whats needed more then sshd to do just about anything ??

A serial line to somekind of terminal server and a proper 'consvar'
setting, on an Alpha server running Tru64 UNIX..;-)
"Compaq Integrated Remote Console (IRC)" are AFAIK mostly used with
M$ servers....

Michael Heiming
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Greg McFarlane

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Jun 5, 2002, 8:08:21 PM6/5/02

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p...@icke-reklam.ipsec.nu wrote in message news:<adken6$8q7$4...@nyheter.crt.se>...

> Greg McFarlane <gr...@iname.com> wrote:
> > We have 16 rack-mounted Compaq servers that we need to monitor remotely. One
> > choice is to put Lights-Out Cards in all of them and connect these to
> > a LAN switch. The other choice is to connect the serial ports of all
> > the servers to a terminal server and use IRC. Has anyone had any
> > reliability problems with IRC? What is the preferred choice?
>
> Arn't you talking about un*x systems ???
> Whats needed more then sshd to do just about anything ??

Yes, I am talking about a unix system, but I am also talking about access to the
box when the O/S is booting or not working. After I "shutdown -h", I want
to be able to connect to the box and restart it. The Lights-Out Card and
IRC let you do that - that is, they are independent of the O/S.

Of course, for normal day-to-day administering, I would use telnet, ssh, etc.

Adam Price

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Jun 6, 2002, 1:50:27 AM6/6/02

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I think I read somwhere that Greg McFarlane <gr...@iname.com> wrote ...
:

If the Unix in question is running on Alpha type hardware then simply
set the console variables such that you are using a serial console.
Get a terminal server and some serial cables and you are all set.

If you are using PC type hardware then get the lights out cards.

Lastly what do you mean IRC the only thing I know by that acronym
is Internet Relay Chat and I don't think thats what you mean.
Use some console management software like PCM(Or what ever it is
called these days) if you want to keep console logs, if not just
telnet to the port on the terminal server.

HTH
Adam

p...@icke-reklam.ipsec.nu

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Jun 6, 2002, 4:01:00 AM6/6/02

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I have seen "blackBox" corp sell a "ssh-device" ( somewhat like a terminal server
in reverse mode , ssh into it, and get connected to one of the serial ports)

Besides that any BSD/Linuz box with one or several Xem terminal muxes would
do the same job.