[rescue] I see da lite

[Josh Neal]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 11:34:03PM +1300, Kenneth Dunn wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Brian Hechinger wrote:
> 
> > > that provides an easy to use interface + terminal emulation for
> > > up to 8 computers ? 
> 
> > minicom?  tip?  kermit?  take your pick.  any of those will do just fine.
> > nothing special needed.  now if you want to be able to telnet to a port to
> > get a console like most hardware consoles do, that's a different story.
> > i don't know what to recommend there, but it couldn't possibly be that hard
> > a thing to write if something doesn't already exist.
> 
> Yeh, I want hot keyed software that will allow me to flick between
> serial lines, scroll back buffer, and possibly provide different terminal 
> emulations. "The Plan" is to be able to use any of my computers from
> any where in the house and via the Internet. 

I do this on my work and home racks:

1 master 2U w/ 2 ethernets and 1 Comtrol Rocketport w/ one of more 16port serial concentrators (this machine provides DHCP/PXE to the nodes, does NAT between the rack and the rest of the network, and logs all of the serial output)

Each machine gets a serial cable on ttyS0, and has this line in /etc/lilo.conf:
append="console=ttyS0,38400 console=tty0". 
Where possible, BIOS serial redirect is enabled on that port as well.

I use screen + minicom to connect to the nodes and log the output. 

I create /etc/minirc.r[0-15] on the master with contents like:
pr port             /dev/ttyR0
pu baudrate         38400
pr bits             8
pr parity           N
pu minit
pu mreset
pu rtscts           No
pu xonxoff          No

Then run:

screen -m -d -S r0 minicom r0 -m -C/var/log/consoles/r0.log

(This can be neatly run from a for loop in rc.local)

I can ssh to the master from wherever and flip between console sessions easily (eg, screen -r r0). I don't have any machines which need terminal emulation other than vt100, but you should be able to configure that in /etc/minirc.blah. 

I haven't yet fixed log rotation, but I'm compensating for now by making /var really large.

-josh

-- 
Josh Neal
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
	-- Homer Simpson