Those who remember AUX ports on routers and cabling to CON ports might appreciate Wetatronics design of a SFP that provides an AUX port (or two with a breakout adapter). Connects outbound to a meet me server (cloud or run on-prem) over TLS.
Seems like a clever idea, for a “zero U” console server.
(As announced at #NZNOG lightning talks.)
@jwp yeah it seemed to me a solution that worked best when you had an all SFP switch (eg, 24-48 x SFP) in the rack, which didn’t have all the ports used, and not much spare rack space.
There’ve been other DIY solutions before, but this one seems like a clever compact implementation.
@jwp power cycle situations can often be solved with remote hands, especially in colo. But one might not always want to talk those remote hands through the console access.
(Also lots of “oops” issues on network gear can be fixed be fixed just with serial console.)
Not claiming it’s a perfect solution. Just thought it was a clever integration worth remembering had been productised.
@ewenmcneill absolutely more tidy than any of my hacks and likely to go unoticed in a rack / audit test for sure.
i've used relay/esp solution to also provide a basic watchdog timer for ... less ... robust hardware.
Ewen McNeill
Joel Wirāmu, Pauling