[patch] update for console-server article
Dmitry Morozovsky
marck at rinet.ru
Sat Jul 31 12:21:58 UTC 2004
Dear colleagues,
I was working on translating console-server article for FreeBSD Russian
Documentation Project and found that many parts of it are a bit stale.
Here is my first phase of updates. Please evaluate it.
Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
D.Marck [DM5020, MCK-RIPE, DM3-RIPN]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Dmitry Morozovsky --- D.Marck --- Wild Woozle --- marck at rinet.ru ***
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Index: article.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/ncvs/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/console-server/article.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.17
diff -u -r1.17 article.sgml
--- article.sgml 18 Jul 2004 12:54:13 -0000 1.17
+++ article.sgml 31 Jul 2004 12:18:21 -0000
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
<abstract>
<para>This document describes how you can use &os;, hardware and
- software that runs on &os; to set up a <quote>console server</quote>;
+ software that runs on &os; to set up a <quote>console server</quote>:
a machine that you can use to monitor the consoles of many other
machines, instead of a bunch of serial terminals.</para>
</abstract>
@@ -322,21 +322,15 @@
<title>Setting Up The Server</title>
<sect2 id="patching-stallion">
- <title>Patching the Stallion driver</title>
+ <title>Checking the Stallion driver</title>
- <para>The only hitch with setting up the server PC is getting the device
- drivers for the Stallion card. &os; has supported Stallion ISA
- cards for many years, but unfortunately the driver has not been
- actively maintained for some years, and does not support the newer
- Stallion cards (such as the &easyio; PCI card or some of the other ISA
- cards with newer UART chips). I have put together a <ulink
- URL="stal-jumbo-patch">patch file</ulink> for &os; 4.3 (based on
- the work of many other people) that will update the system to support
- these newer cards. Hopefully, this patch will be committed to the
- &os; tree in time for the 4.4 release. If you are running &os;
- 4 from prior to this time, you will need to download and apply this
- patch (instructions are included at the top of the patch file). If
- you are running &os; 3, then you had probably best upgrade.</para>
+ <para>&os; has adequate support for modern Stallion cards since 4.4 release.
+ If you are running &os; 4 from prior to this release, you will need
+ update your sources and recompile system (which you should anyway due
+ to security reasons). See the
+ documentation in <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename> and the <ulink
+ URL="../../books/handbook/makeworld.html">&os;
+ Handbook</ulink>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="configuring-kernel">
@@ -350,16 +344,6 @@
Handbook</ulink>.</para>
</sect2>
- <sect2 id="building-world">
- <title>Building World</title>
-
- <para>After applying the patch you will certainly need to update the
- whole system, including all the user programs and the kernel. See the
- documentation in <filename>/usr/src/UPDATING</filename> and the <ulink
- URL="../../books/handbook/makeworld.html">&os;
- Handbook</ulink>.</para>
- </sect2>
-
<sect2 id="making-devices">
<title>Making The Devices</title>
@@ -388,8 +372,9 @@
<note>
<para>See the section on <application>conserver</application> versions
- <xref linkend="conserver-versions">; the version I use is not the one
- available in the &os; ports collection.)</para>
+ <xref linkend="conserver-versions">; the version I use is
+ available in the &os; ports collection; however, it is not the only
+ one.)</para>
</note>
<para>There are two ways to install <application>conserver</application>.
@@ -401,10 +386,10 @@
<para>Using the ports is a bit cleaner, as the package system can then
keep track of installed software and cleanly delete them when not
- being used. Download the port framework from <ulink
- URL="conserver-port.tar.gz">here</ulink>, unpack it to create a
- directory called <filename>conserver-port</filename>. Change into
- that directory and (as <username>root</username>) type:</para>
+ being used. Use
+ <filename role="package">comms/conserver-com</filename> port.
+ Change into
+ port directory and (as <username>root</username>) type:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make DEFAULTHOST=<replaceable>consolehost</replaceable> install</userinput></screen>
@@ -448,7 +433,7 @@
the console server.</para>
<para>Download the file from the <ulink
- URL="ftp://ftp.conserver.com/conserver/conserver-7.0.2.tar.gz">conserver.com
+ URL="ftp://ftp.conserver.com/conserver/conserver-8.1.9.tar.gz">conserver.com
FTP site</ulink>. Extract it into a handy directory then
configure it by running</para>
@@ -935,7 +920,7 @@
<listitem>
<para>I think that all Cisco gear that has RJ-45 console ports and
- runs &os;will have the same cable requirements. But best to
+ runs &ios; will have the same cable requirements. But best to
check first. We have tried this on 1600s and 2600s only.</para>
<para>Both the Stallion card and the 2600 have RJ-45 connections,
@@ -1280,7 +1265,9 @@
<para>We have confirmed by direct testing that neither the Cisco 16xx,
26xx, or &catalyst; hardware suffers from the <literal>BREAK</literal> sent
- when the Stallion card loses power.</para>
+ when the Stallion card loses power. Contemporary Cisco software listens
+ for <literal>BREAK</literal> signal only for first 30 seconds after
+ power-on or reboot.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="freebsd">
@@ -1319,8 +1306,7 @@
<para>If you are not going to have any keyboard/video screen on this
server at all, you should find all the lines for
- <devicename>ttyv0</devicename> through
- <devicename>ttyv8</devicename>:</para>
+ <devicename>ttyv</devicename> devices like</para>
<programlisting>ttyv1 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure</programlisting>
@@ -1369,14 +1355,15 @@
<para>The <application>conserver</application> program has fractured into
a number of versions. The home page referenced below seems to be the
- latest and most featureful version around, and carries a version number
- of <quote>7.0.2</quote>. This is maintained by Bryan Stansell
+ latest and most featureful version around, and for July 2004 carries a version number
+ of <quote>8.1.9</quote>. This is maintained by Bryan Stansell
<email>bryan at conserver.com</email>, who has brought together the work of
many people (listed on his webpage).</para>
<para>The &os; ports collection contains a port for version 8.5 of
- <application>conserver</application>.
- This seems to be older and less featureful than the 7.0.2
+ <application>conserver</application> at
+ <filename role="package">comms/conserver</filename>.
+ This seems to be older and less featureful than the 8.1.9
version (in particular, it does not support consoles connected to
terminal server ports and does not support a
<filename>conserver.passwd</filename> file), and is written in a fairly
@@ -1385,61 +1372,16 @@
<email>ksb+conserver at sa.fedex.com</email> who did most of the original
work on <application>conserver</application>,
and whose work Bryan Stansell is building on. The
- 8.5 version does support one feature not in the 7.0.2 version
+ 8.5 version does support one feature not in the 8.1.9 version
(controlling power to remote machines via a specific serial-interfaced
power controller hardware).</para>
+
+ <para>Beginning with December 2001, Brian's version (currently 8.1.9) is
+ also presented in ports collection at
+ <filename role="package">comms/conserver-com</filename>. We therefore
+ recommend you to use this version as much more appropriate for
+ console server building.</para>
- <para>As shipped with &os;, the 8.5 version does not authenticate
- against &os; servers using &man.md5.1; passwords. There is a patch in the
- &os; <application>GNATS</application> system (which you can view at <ulink
- URL="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=28432">ports/28432</ulink>)
- that fixes this problem. Kevin has indicated this patch will be
- included in future versions of <application>conserver</application> from him.
- There are a couple
- of other problems with the 8.5 version as well.</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>It is hard to rotate log files, as
- <application>conserver</application> does not create a PID file and
- killing the parent <application>conserver</application> process does
- not kill the children
- (which have the logfiles open).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Compiling it (on anything other than &os;) is a pain because
- it depends on a couple of other large programs to compile. This is
- because it is not written in C but in a macro language that produces
- C code, and so depends on these macro processors. The intent of
- this macro language is to hide system dependencies. The 7.0.2
- version uses GNU configure for the same task, and compiling this
- version on &solaris; is a breeze. (Compiling 8.5 is easier on &os;
- as the ports framework takes care of all this for you).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>After compiling on &solaris;, the
- <application>console</application> program would not authenticate
- against the <application>conserver</application> program on &os;,
- because it used <function>getpass</function> on &solaris; that
- silently truncates passwords to 8 characters. &os; uses <acronym>MD5</acronym>
- passwords that can be (and in our case, are) longer than 8
- characters.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>There was some confusion about the role of <quote>groups</quote>
- in <application>conserver</application>. When replaying log
- messages in 8.5, it seemed to replay messages from all consoles in
- the group, whereas 7.0.2 seems to do the obvious thing and keep
- output from individual consoles separate. (This may well have just
- been boneheaded setup mistakes on my part however.) The upshot was
- that the 8.5 version needed a new group (and process) per console,
- whereas the 7.0.2 version will happily support multiple ports per
- process.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="links">
@@ -1455,10 +1397,10 @@
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><ulink URL="ftp://ftp.conserver.com/conserver/conserver-7.0.2.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.conserver.com/conserver/conserver-7.0.2.tar.gz</ulink></term>
+ <term><ulink URL="ftp://ftp.conserver.com/conserver/conserver-8.1.9.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.conserver.com/conserver/conserver-8.1.9.tar.gz</ulink></term>
<listitem>
- <para>The source tarball for version 7.0.2 of
+ <para>The source tarball for version 8.1.9 of
<application>conserver</application>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
@@ -1516,146 +1458,22 @@
</variablelist>
</sect1>
- <sect1 id="files">
- <title>Files</title>
-
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="stal-jumbo-patch">stal-jumbo-patch</ulink>.
- Stallion Jumbo Patch for &os; 4 (unzipped, 400 KB).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="stal-jumbo-patch.gz">stal-jumbo-patch.gz</ulink>.
- Stallion Jumbo Patch for &os; 4 (gzipped, 140 KB).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="conserver-port.tar.gz">conserver-port.tar.gz</ulink>.
- A &os; port framework for <application>conserver</application> 7.0.2.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="conserver-port.shar">conserver-port.shar</ulink>.
- The port framework as a SHAR file.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </sect1>
-
<sect1 id="manpages">
<title>Manual Pages</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="console.html">console(8)</ulink></para>
+ <para><ulink URL="http://www.conserver.com/docs/console.man.html">console(8)</ulink></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="conserver.html">conserver(8)</ulink></para>
+ <para><ulink URL="http://www.conserver.com/docs/conserver.man.html">conserver(8)</ulink></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para><ulink URL="conserver.cf.html">conserver.cf(5)</ulink></para>
+ <para><ulink URL="http://www.conserver.com/docs/conserver.cf.man.html">conserver.cf(5)</ulink></para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
- <sect1 id="changelog">
- <title>Change Log</title>
-
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry>
- <term>10 July, 2001</term>
-
- <listitem>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Initial version announced on &os; and Sage-AU mailing
- lists.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>12 July, 2001</term>
-
- <listitem>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Notes on some commercial console servers from Doug
- Schache.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Grrr. Fixed the pinout for the Cisco - Stallion RJ-45
- cable. The cable would have worked but was backwards. The
- new table now reflects the description.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Noted that &catalyst; cable is a 26xx cable plugged in the
- other way around.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Added notes about RJ-45 pin numberring and color coding
- conventions.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Added notes about serial console on &os;/i386
- platforms.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Now in RCS.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>13 July, 2001</term>
-
- <listitem>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Notes on cable marking from Hugh Irvine.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Notes on custom-made cables, source for headshells.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>18 July, 2001</term>
-
- <listitem>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Links to Black Box adapters.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Fix dates. It is July, already!</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Pointers to commercial solutions and
- serial-port-on-other-server setup.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Pointer to <command>openssl passwd</command>
- command.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
- </sect1>
</article>
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