My original posting was...
>
> The use of network console servers has been mentioned a couple of
> times here and the various recommendations given have been very
> useful. What we would like to do is have the ability of capturing
> all console output to file (handy for crashes etc) even if a login
> session is not currently attached to the console and still retain
> the ability to retain use of the serial port as the console.
> Basically a serial line snoop is required.
>
> I suspect that the ability to do this will require a UNIX box front
> end rather than a true network terminal server. I have tried the
> various methods mentioned in John Clinton's "SUMMARY: Capturing text
> from a serial port" message but with no luck as although all output
> does indead to go a log and none of it goes to the serial comms
> package.
>
> John's message mentioned "Peek" but he was not provided any more
> information on this, would this do the job? Does anyone have any
> other ideas.
>
Many Thanks to those who responded
Virantha Mendis - For suggesting an old PC running procomm logging to a
file.
Kai O'Yang - For suggesting using script before telnetting to an annex
box consoled console.
Jim Robertori - For suggesting centralised logging via syslog
Michael Pavlov - For suggesting using screen to allow detatching and
re-attching from a console session while keeping the log
Chris Phillips - For suggesting a package he wrote while working at
cs.yorku.ca called spoolcon (Haven't been able to track that one down
yet)
Ronald Loftin - For suggesting using a SCSI terminal server and using
tip from an IPC or similar.
Jean-Francois Fortin - For suggesting screen and tip
Philip Plane - For suggesting a perl script to connect to the console
line and gather any messages before putting them through syslog
I have had other suggestions such as using VNC (Virtual Network
Computing) http://infostud.dsi.unifi.it/doc/packages/vnc/docs.html which
allows unix/X/windows95/windowsNT/MAC all to be displayed on each others
screen (for free too!). Possibly overkill for the task I am trying to do
though.
The star prize however goes to Richard Hellier and Roar Smith. For
suggesting a package called conserver
available at ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/bitsko/config-mgmt/ This does
exactly what I needed. I can run console sessions from any workstation
on the net, view the console in read only mode from any number of others
and the whole lot goes to a log file on the console server
workstation/PC
Thanks again
Simon Falvey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:12:53 CDT