On 5/24/19, 9:16 AM, "Linux on 390 Port on behalf of Alan Altmark" <LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU on behalf of alan_altm...@us.ibm.com> wrote: > While I've always wanted to see it virtualized and the VM telnet server > given a way to connect to it (meaning no client/host translations or > conversions)
Amen to both. Constructing an analogue to a classic terminal server UI as a VM application wouldn't be that hard to do if we set our minds to it. Would be a clever use of the RSK toolkit or PIPEs. > I've never heard of a problem with the HMC ASCII console. > What's the issue? It's not necessarily a problem with the console function per se, but a differing set of expectations on how to use it and how it's expected to function when presented to a person familiar with the idea of a serial console attached to a terminal server as the default behavior. It's an unusual setup in that it a) has to be set up within every virtual system rather than being the default behavior out of the box (the discrete box console/terminal server approach requires no modification to how the target system is configured at all, allowing moving between physical and virtual environments transparently), b) has been unevenly supported by distribution releases over time (in terms of what you have to do being different on RH/SuSE/Ubuntu) which has occasionally been a PITA, and c) at various points in time it could only be effectively used with one virtual machine at a time. All are fixable (with c) being an issue with your HMC ucode level), but they're not the out-of-the-box default and it's another gratuitous difference that hostile folks use to claim the platform is somehow less appropriate; the fact you can accomplish the same goal isn't the same thing as "it can be done the same way you manage all your other systems" and it's a lot harder to sell if you have to sell a "this is different, so you need to accommodate it" solution to system management. The Linux-based terminal server is closer to how the other platforms behave, and most of the common management solutions Just Work with how it operates (with some minor tweaks to UI text and behavior, it's a drop-in; changing the prompts to be compatible with the default Cisco/Livingston terminal server dialog is a fairly minor step and can be done once in a central place). Integrating this with things like Kafka and other mass log/event analysis tools is a lot easier, which reduces the cost of operation by allowing more common investments to cover more infrastructure. Authentication issues (like the one with 2-factor auth recently discussed here) can be completely consistent across platforms, and support common solutions that don't require acquiring additional commercial tooling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
