Secure Web Console

[John Peace]

I have a L3000 server on the way. It has no monitor or keyboard coming with it. My company is looking at a possiblity of buying about 10 "L" class servers to deploy at different sites and want to save money by not buying monitors. I have just started reading about SWC and I don't see where I will be able to do a few things without a monitor or keyboard at the server. Will I be able to interrupt the boot up sequence? How will I be able to go to single user mode? What about maintenance mode?
Are these things possible with SWC?

[Jeff Machols · Accepted solution]

John,

You will be able to do everything. All you do is telnet into the SWC, and it is just like you have a monitor hooked up, we do all our single user maint from SWC.

[Tom Geudens]

Hi,
To simply answer the question ... yes you can do all those things from the swc. However, you might not want to. It's no bed of roses.
Since they are gonna buy 10 servers, I would try to get 1 console too. You can use this console to define the gsp's for each of the servers ... and your set. From thereon you can do the administration from your own desktop. Keep the console to do the gsp "maintenance" ...

Hope this helps,
Tom Geudens

[Craig Rants]

John,
The best use of a swc is for remote administration. If these L's are going to be at your physical location, definately get a switch with one console. Black Box has exactly what you want to look for. A swc will do everything you need, but a switch would be just the thing.

GL,
C

[murgesh]

Hi

I am working on SWC and I am fine with that we have N Class servers where in M/C Service guard is running on them and i can do all system adminstration with that i can also use the GUI of HPUX by just loading the Exceed at my laptop and setting the DISPLAY... :)


Go for it

Murgesh Mathad

[Deshpande Prashant]

HI
The web console is similar to normal console accessed via web browser. You also have option of using lan console on these new servers.

I guess you still might need one console, at least for initial configuration of these web consoles, as their default IP address may not be in your network.

Thanks.
Prashant.

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hi,

In this scenario I would go for a blackbox. I single console can be then used for number of servers. Also these L class servers have lan console port that can be configured with GSP. I would suggest you to configure lan console for all the servers.

More info on black box can be found on

www.blackbox.com

Goodluck,
-USA.

[Bill Hassell]

Another alternative to the Web Console is to activate the LAN console port. This is a simple telnet port into the GSP so you have access to the processor at all times. You can even turn the machine off and on again through this port (Web Console or serial console can do the same).

You'll need at least one 'real' console in the computer room for the occasional hardware changes such as adding I/O or RAM, etc. It's much more convenient to have a plain old terminal present than to run back to the office to see if the changes worked OK.

[John Peace]

Thanks for all the info. I have my first L3000 in and have activated the lan console port in GSP. This is what I was looking for. I took a quick look at SWC and I'm sure I will use the console port over the swc. A side note the servers will be located at various sites throughout the world.