SUMMARY: Remote access to server console

From: Glenn Carver (glenn@atm.ch.cam.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 26 1996 - 09:02:24 CST


Hi All,

Thanks to some very swift answers. I wanted to be able to dial in from home to
reboot my servers. I had two questions:

1. I wanted to alter the input device which defaulted to the keyboard. Lots of
suggestions to unplug it, which I'd said I didn't want to do. What I was after
was a command that could be run which would switch input from keyboard to the
serial port ttya. This doesn't seem possible without rebooting.

The key was to change the eeprom settings: eeprom input-device=ttya.
The machine needs to be rebooted for this to take effect.

2. The next question was how to send the server a STOP-A or BREAK. Unfortunately
I was trying to figure out how to do this via NCSA Telnet on a Mac whereas
as nearly everyone pointed out, you can do this via tip by a ~# key sequence.

Other solutions would be to use a terminal server with connections to the
ttya ports on the server and a modem. Unfortunately, I didn't have the cash
for this option.

Gene Rackow also suggested the 'conserver' program which I shall look into:
  "The best thing to do would be to get the conserver program.
   Then the "break key is "esc e l 1". You also get logging
   and the capability of having multiple people attached to
   the console at once. Only 1 in write mode, others as "spy".
   Passwd protection on the connection, etc.
   Pick up the sources from ftp.mcs.anl.gov:/pub/systems/conserver-5.11.anl.tar.Z"

Thanks go to:
"Brian T. Wightman" <wightman@sol.acs.uwosh.edu>
Jon Weintraub <jrw@neog.com>
Gene Rackow <rackow@mcs.anl.gov>
"Bert N. Shure" <bert@virtual.com>
Fedor Gnuchev <qwe@ht.eimb.rssi.ru>
Heas <heas@shrubbery.net>
Jim Harmon <jim@telecnnct.com>
David Pope <pope@vicinity.com>
Glenn Satchell <Glenn.Satchell@Uniq.com.au>
Kevin Davidson <tkld@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>

----- Original message -----

Hi Sun Managers,

I have a portable sparc acting as a console server for my two servers. I've got
serial cables from the portable going into serial port A on both servers. I
then use tip to get into the server console.

Once connected to the server through tip I have to use the server keyboard.
This isn't a problem by itself but I'd like to be able to log in remotely (say
from home) via a modem to be able to reboot the server if it hangs at
weekends. In other words I want the server to accept a STOP-A sequence from
me at home rather than expect input from it's keyboard at work.

So, that's question no. 1. How do I alter the server and/or tip on the portable
to make the server take keyboard input through the serial port and not from its
own keyboard? It's more convenient to be able to work on the server keyboard
at work, so ideally I need to keep the server keyboard connected.

Question no. 2 is - does anyone know what the STOP-A sequence equates to on
a Mac keyboard (yes I've got a mac at home) via NCSA Telnet?

Many thanks and I will summarise.

    Glenn

_______________________________________________________________________
Dr. Glenn Carver, Phone: +44 (1223) 336524
Centre for Atmospheric Science, Fax: +44 (1223) 336473
Cambridge University, Chemistry Dept., glenn@atm.ch.cam.ac.uk
Lensfield Road,
Cambridge, CB4 4JZ, UK http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/~glenn/

      "Someone told me that each equation I included in the book
       would halve the sales."
                 Prof. Stephen Hawking, 'A Brief History of Time', 1988.
_______________________________________________________________________



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