Remotely access to console port of Switch 5820/5500/3600

[AlexisKoch]

Hello everyone,

In my campus, the backbone is located in different technical locals, and walking to them can take some time I don't have in the case of a big problem on the network. If the problem makes the switches un-manageable (in-band management), I'd like to access to them by the console port.

I've looked on the HP site, but only found things for servers. Maybe I don't know the correct words in english, because I'm pretty sure it exists...

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

[EricAtHP · Accepted solution]

You are looking for a "Serial Console Server".

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c00994507&sp4ts.oid=1143728

It uses ethernet/telnet from your PC to the console server and then serial from the console server to the device. That means that you need an ethernet network that is always available, which might mean a physically seperate managment network. If you go to the lengh of building a physically seperate management network, you might consider connecting the devices that have a dedicated mangement network port directly to the management network.

[VoIP-Buddy]

Eric beat me to it.  However, if the network is down, even that won't help.  So I would suggest adding a dial-up connection with a modem in addition to Eric's suggestion of a Serial Console Server, or terminal server, more generically.  That way you even have access if the network is dead.

One caveat is that the dial-up modem line should be suitably protected so that you don't have a security breech.

Regards,

David

[AlexisKoch]

Thank you, that's exactly what I was searching for!

[Apachez-]

There are many ways to solve this... the most basic is to actually go to the device and physically login to it - this way you wont need a parallell network to maintain.

If the devices are really remote (so it would take you or a collegue some time to reach to the failing device) the most common way is to use some kind of lowprice 3G/LTE/4G subscription with preferly public ip. If this is not possible (public ip, not uncommon that cellphone operators charge extra for public ip that is the default is to NAT you and use private ip's) you can do reverse connection (that is your console server will "phone home" and setup an openvpn-tunnel to the central vpn-box and have the connectivity available that way).

That is you end up with something like this at each node:

3G/LTE/4G-router with simcard (with data subscription) <-> RJ45 <-> Raspberry PI2 (or similar) <-> USB to serial converter <-> DB9 cable <-> Device to manage

https://networklessons.com/network-management/raspberry-pi-as-cisco-console-server/ there are many more hits if you search for "raspberry pi console server" along with videos etc.

Other options are to buy commercial solutions but they often tend to cost alot more than a raspberry pi-based solution (which you can customize with phonehome openvpn and such).