Mailing List Archive

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 04:38:23PM -0500, George Lenzer wrote:
> Hopefully I am posting in the right place. My organization has run into

yep.

> a situation where we are looking for an alternative to the DEC
> Polycenter product to monitor consoles with our DEC 90Ms. From what I
> gather, it looks as if Conserver may be the answer. I've downloaded the

could be...or, should i say, hope so (dunno what Polycenter is, but
sounds promising).

> console 90aut1 {
> master localhost;
> type host;
> host 10.0.1.250;
> port 1;
> }
>
> I was unsure of what context the 'port' option was meant. Is it the
> physical port on the 90M, or a TCP port that the 90M should be
> configured for?

it's the tcp port the 90M should be listening on. the idea is it makes
a socket connection to 'host' on tcp/ip port 'port'. so, looks like
you're quite close. if you can telnet to 10.0.1.250 on a certain port
and talk to the console, you should be able to just point conserver at
it and it should work. then you can think about the 'logfile' and
'timestamp' options. ;-)

i hope this helped. if there's anything i can do to help more, let me
know. and perhaps someone on the list is using a 90M and can send you
any useful pointers.

Bryan

George,

From what I know about 90Ms, the console port being serial port 1 means that
status messages about loads and comm problems "print" out port 1. In our
setup, we literally have a serial printer connected to port 1 on all 90Ms in
the field. The printer zips out a line every time the RouteAbout router is
rebooted. It also zips out several lines when the 90M is getting it's boot
load from the MOP or tftp server.

When I get into work today I will check on the default TCP ports associated
with each serial port. That is what Brian was talking about. You have to
set the "access" mode of each serial port to "remote" and either know the
default TCP port for each serial port, or assign them TCP port numbers.
That way, Conserver can attach itself to each serial port that you have
defined as a console port for each Vax or Alpha you are
monitoring/controlling.

Vaxes are very chatty things. They will fill up the hard disk of your
Conserver machine very quickly. Although I am using Conserver to monitor
Unix machines, I have set aside an entire disk as a /log volume just for
Conserver logs. Also, I have a cron job that throws away all files older
than 80 days on the /log volume.

If someone else does not beat me to it, I should have the information on the
remote TCP ports to you in another email this morning.

Greg Brown
CSC, San Diego


>From: George Lenzer <George.Lenzer@cpl.org>
>To: users@conserver.com
>Subject: New to Conserver
>Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 16:38:23 -0500
>
>Hopefully I am posting in the right place. My organization has run into
>a situation where we are looking for an alternative to the DEC
>Polycenter product to monitor consoles with our DEC 90Ms. From what I
>gather, it looks as if Conserver may be the answer. I've downloaded the
>source code and compiled it (on a Linux x86 box) and successfully ran
>the 'make test'. I also copied the sample conserver.cf file to
>/usr/local/etc and edited it to reflect the terminal server we'd like to
>monitor. However, I am a little confused about how conserver actually
>gets configured to talk to the DEC 90M. Here is what I have in my
>conserver.cf file for out terminal server (90aut1 on 10.0.1.250):
>
>console 90aut1 {
> master localhost;
> type host;
> host 10.0.1.250;
> port 1;
>}
>
>I was unsure of what context the 'port' option was meant. Is it the
>physical port on the 90M, or a TCP port that the 90M should be
>configured for?
>
>Has anyone else had experience using DEC 90Ms? And... if this isn't the
>right place to ask, where should I ask. Alas, Google searches haven't
>turned up much that is useful in regard to terminal servers like the
>90M. We aren't interested in going to multiple serial ports.
>
>Thanks,
>George
>
>_______________________________________________
>users mailing list
>users@conserver.com
>https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users

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[. On Monday, November 10, 2003 at 15:44:07 (-0800), Bryan Stansell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: New to Conserver
>
> it's the tcp port the 90M should be listening on. the idea is it makes
> a socket connection to 'host' on tcp/ip port 'port'. so, looks like
> you're quite close. if you can telnet to 10.0.1.250 on a certain port
> and talk to the console, you should be able to just point conserver at
> it and it should work. then you can think about the 'logfile' and
> 'timestamp' options. ;-)

The DECserver 90M is much the same as the 32-port DECserver 900TM and
the 8-port 90TL units that I have (and also similar to the 90L+).

The 90M is nice in that it also has a 10baseT RJ45 on the front for its
network connection and as well it has FlashRAM to boot from. The 90TL
has no FlashRAM and only the 10baseT BNC connector (though luckily I
have a DEChub 900 backplane :-)

I'd love to have a 90M, in a multistack chassis or with a little
DEChub-90, for my office! ;-)

They run DECserver NAS and its telnet listeners are on ports 2001 and
up. They require a port access password ("access" by default) to
connect and thus the "chat" patches I submitted.

Port#1 is usually the console of the terminal server itself (to which
you would normally attach an RS-232 terminal for direct access) and so
when you "telnet decserver 2001" and enter the port access password you
will connect to Port#2.

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com> Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>