Re: Conserver with Comtrol RocketPort

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nathan r. hruby wrote:
| On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Michael Redinger wrote:
|
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|> Hello,
|>
|> has anyone tested the Comtrol RocketPort uPCI 32-port card with
|> conserver?
|> I am planning to use 2 of these cards in a 1U server and use it as
|> console server.
|>
|> Or are there any other uPCI cards which support at least 32 Ports (1U
|> rack mounted)?
|> I know the Cyclades-Y series card, but it is only available as 32-bit
|> PCI card (not uPCI) - this means that I would not be able to put 2 of
|> them in our 1U servers.
|> (Yes, there is the Perle RIO, but the rack mount concentrators only have
|> 16 ports, and it is more expensive.)
|>
|
| The Ze cards (PCI only) support up to 64 ports per card, with the gotcha
| that each 16 port breakout box consumes and additional 1U and you need to
| buy an additional power supply for the 3rd and 4th breakout boxes.

Same problem as with the Y series - it is PCI only. I do not know any
modern 1U server where you can use 2 PCI cards (2 uPCI are ok).

| FWIW, I'm happy with my Ze's as well as my TS's.  What particular problems
| have you had?

Well, I did not have any particular problems - it's just that a solution
using a standard Linux server and console seems much better ...
The TS are slow (especially the ssh connections) and too expensive.
I had to write some (very strange) scripts to get a functionality
similar to a "normal" Linux box (eg. for log rotation) and it lacks many
standard tools (I do not want to have to cross-compile every little
utility myself).
Conserver also seems much better regarding the core console
functionality and it seems easier to manage. Ever tried to find out to
which of your 5 console servers a particular host is attached? I wrote
some scripts to do this (that was before I heard of conserver).
Of course I will still use our existing console servers (integrating
them with conserver seems easy enough), but for a new system conserver +
~  1U server + 2 RocketPort 32-port cards seems to be the better solution.

Michael

- --
Michael Redinger
Zentraler Informatikdienst (Computer Centre)
Universitaet Innsbruck
Technikerstrasse 13                     Tel.: ++43 512 507 2335
6020 Innsbruck                          Fax.: ++43 512 507 2944
Austria                                 Mail: Michael.Redinger@uibk.ac.at
BB98 D2FE 0F2C 2658 3780  3CB1 0FD7 A9D9 65C2 C11D
http://www.uibk.ac.at/~c102mr/mred-pubkey.asc
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