Tyson D Sawyer wrote: > Justin Cormack wrote: > >> What do people do when they get very large numbers of serial consoles? >> >> I was wondering if using etherboot-like network drivers (ie no dma) to >> run >> the console would be any less reliable than a serial console? As I am >> using >> gigabit ethernet there is often a spare motherboard ethernet (as you >> obvioously dont want to run the main ether like this), and it could be on >> a dedicated network for security (especially if you feed udp packets into >> the console). >> >> It might take a little more setup than serial (ie you might not be >> able to >> do it before RAM init) I guess, as you have to detect media, and do dhcp >> (though you could run over raw ethernet in broadcast mode). >> >> Is this sensible? >> >> Justin > > > Rather than dhcp or broadcasting everything, you could broadcast a > request for the MAC address of the console. ...all raw ethernet as you > suggested. Sort of an ARP request, but special. Also sort of like > broadcasting to find a DHCP server. > > Ty >
....thinking a little further, you would setup a system where both console server and client broadcast and ARP request, but using a name in the request rather than an IP. The console server would respond to the name "console". Through this, the server and clients could find each other. It might be sufficient for the clients to find the server and have the server keep track of who has contacted it. In this way, the only "name" is the console server and the clients don't need to respond to the ARP like requests. Ty -- Tyson D Sawyer iRobot Corporation Senior Systems Engineer Military Systems Division [EMAIL PROTECTED] Robots for the Real World 603-532-6900 ext 206 http://www.irobot.com
