On 28/07/2013 14:55, Brandon Butterworth wrote: >> What's the use case for two NICs? > > Where they are independent I put one on the lan and the other > on ADSL for OOB access when the lan fails (you usually want > a console server to deal with failure, they're not much use > if you can't get to them when things fail) > > Just because it has two it doesn't mean they are separate vrf > so check first if you wish to use it this way
I've used Lantronix SLC. They aren't the cheapest of the bunch, but we were starting to standardise, and didn't have much time to look/test devices. http://www.lantronix.com/it-management/console-servers/slc.html I agree with the comments about using LOM (of whatever flavour) for servers; the SLCs we used were for network kit only (or, sometimes, for initial config of server & storage kit). My feeling is that net-admin's can't expect the network to be running all the time (that's why they need console), but server admins should be able to expect that; ie. fix the network first, then server-admins can fix the servers (via LOM). I've used the dual NICs for resiliently plugging into 2 network devices (they have bonding-type failover with a ping test, but not separate VRFs), and others for plugging into 2 different networks (eg public and private). Positives: * have a firewall on (iptables), but it can be a bit of a fiddle to setup the firewall. * dual firmware banks to test/upgrade * LCD/input panel on front - useful for initial setup by remote-hands in a DC. * can drive USB devices (eg modem), but I didn't test. The downsides for SLCs were: * very slow update cycle (I think 2 new firmwares in 4 years) * no access to the underlying Linux OS (could be considered a blessing, depending on your PoV) * "sysadmin" user account which is local-auth only (impossible to disable, IIRC). WRT Avocent/Cyclades, I liked the ability to ssh to a port label (eg "ssh user:router@consoleserver"), which meant you configure the descriptions on the consoleserver alone. I raised a feature-request for Lantronix to do the same, but don't believe they have yet. Cheers Ivan -- Ivan Beveridge <[email protected]>
