[TriLUG] Stupid question time - Serial terminal and Linux

[Magnus]

On Monday, February 23, 2004, at 11:02  PM, Mike M wrote:

> If I understand you correctly, you have no VGA + keyboard console and
> you only have a serial port. You want to reload the machine using the 
> serial port?

This is very very common if you're on non-PC hardware.  Most of my 
machines are sparc, hp-parisc and alpha.  The only monitor is hooked up 
to my PC which is running minicom and a big null modem cable that I 
move from machine to machine.

My employer just gave me the external components to a 16 port Digiboard 
setup, and the internal PCI card is coming when we move the data center 
this summer and have an opportunity to take the card out of the server 
that is no longer using it.  That will make life so much nicer as I can 
get to most of my machines without having to move any cables around.

Like Kevin (partly) pointed out, the serial console is only really used 
for loading the OS and doing any sort of troubleshooting in a "network 
down" scenario.  Once the host is up and on the network, ssh'ing in is 
the better interface.

--

C. Magnus Hedemark
http://trilug.org/~chrish
"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink 
what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." - Mark Twain
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