Terminal Servers

Taking a look at terminal servers for my homelab - terminal servers let you hook up multiple serial devices to one central access hub. We'll start with the MRV Secure Console Server I've been using for about a year, then build out a Cisco 2509 terminal server with an octopus cable. We'll also experiment with hooking up a modem to Cisco AUX ports.
Check me out on Patreon: / clabretro
Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
#cisco #networking #homelab #retrotech
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[@SpencerNeutron]

I tried to explain to my girlfriend why I’ve been watching videos on late 90’s to early 00’s enterprise networking equipment and… I have no idea but please keep them coming lol

[@clabretro]

no end in sight lol

[@doalwa]

I feel ya, those are always awkward conversations 😢

[@the_beefy1986]

If she's "the one" then she should understand you without explanation.

[@josef5319]

Its where "it" all started to form. And it hasnt changed much. For example, auth protocols like PPP from the 90s are still used every day in modern fiber connections. I love this channel :)

[@kc0eks]

Right with ya

[@SeMoDrix]

This is what i need now to calm down to get ready to sleep

[@unixerius6632]

Dude's got a soothing voice, I'll give you that! Usually when I'm ill, laid up in bed, I listen to Bob Ross. This channel might make a nice fill-in.

[@distinctdipole]

I can tell you, his voice and of course the antics, are very enjoyable while I have a lazy brunch on a day off

[@ickipoo]

Working for an ISP in the 90's, we had dozens of 2511's handling inbound dialup PPP sessions, each with its own discrete rack modem. A call group (POP) might have a hundred or more modems. The core router at each POP was a Cisco AGS+, with ISDN being used for inter-POP links initially, later moving to Nx64k sync serial, then frame relay, then ATM. Dialup access moved to the 5200 (which had 60 discrete modem DSP chips in 2 rack units - the heat coming out was diabolical), then the 5300 (which could handle up to 480 calls, no longer using a DSP-per-caller, if I remember correctly).

[@IBM_Museum]

We used the Cisco 5200 and 5300 as well - "Access Server" (so 'AS5200' and 'AS5300'). Both were 2U, and had 48 and 96 modems per card, respectively, with multiple cards able to run in each unit. 'MICA' and "Microcom' modems (trunked in over T1 lines), I think the MICA modems had more trouble with low-quality lines.

[@unixerius6632]

The Serial Port is another KZbin channel that dives into enterprise gear from this era. They rebuilt exactly what you described: a dial-in ISP, with modems going into a terminal server via PPP, then out to "the internet". It's great to learn a bit more history from them.

[@BillCondo]

It was a great time to be working at an ISP! I loved my time doing the same.

[@donaldwilliams6821]

Terminal servers still rock today So much hardware from storage to switches to power distribution stuff still needs serial port access. Especially when they fail. They were so expensive back then now they are so cheap. Thanks for the video

[@petint]

Oh, so I'm not the only one who call the "CAB-OCTAL-ASYNC - Cisco 72-0845-01" the "Octopus cable"

[@rnts08]

No, and I used them as late as 2013 for OOB access to our core network and routers in case of emergencies. I had to use it twice in the 5 years I had it there, using a 10Mpbs leased line from the DC when all 3 of our unlink went down and I wasn't on any of our peer networks. Fun times.

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

Cables with the same idea, i.e. one multi pin connector to several connectors with fewer pines, are used for stage lighting, and those are called whips :) (the stage lighting multi channel connector is called socapex)

[@petint]

@@Thesecret101-te1lm Yeah, those are neat to.

[@TheErador]

​@@Thesecret101-te1lmwhips, i never heard that in the uk. I use fan-in, fan-out, breakout or tails set. At least for soca->15A/16A.

[@theoriginalscola]

Long Live RS232! I use Moxa 16 and 32 port terminal servers to control TV's and other devices in commercial AV installs. Functions the same way - IP address + port#. Also use CAT6 to do all the runs. I could do a lot of it over IP, but RS232 always works! 99% of Commercial LED (and a fair number of consumer) TV's still come equipped with a serial port. (normally on a 1/8" TRS jack)

[@AvroVulcanXH607]

I used to work in digital signage - we didn't use the RS232 ports, but I did love the adapters with crazy 7 way 3.5mm jacks 😆

[@encorespod2135]

Dude, just this week I set up two RS485 busses in a factory. The old stuff never dies, if it works, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[@allanrobinson5522]

Nothing like an unexpected Clabretro drop after work on a Tuesday!

[@Ben333bacc]

Wednesday?

[@pb_y43]

Thursday here!

[@mndodd]

You seem like a guy that needs to experience 10base5. :D

[@clabretro]

😆

[@VSteam81]

terminal servers

[@owenvogelgesang7314]

serminal tervers

[@Roxy53280]

@@owenvogelgesang7314 servinal termers

[@grabasandwich]

​@@owenvogelgesang7314servinal termers

[@xp8969]

Semen terror

[@VSteam81]

@@xp8969 💀

[@jeppeuhd]

That big connector is a v35 serial connector

[@carneeki]

The rollover cable literally flips pin 1 -> 8, 2 -> 7, 3 -> 6 and so on... It rolls the cable over. That's the kind of cable needed for the MRV around 4m10s. Recently dug up an identical AUI to RJ-45 adapter to show a friend, which is why I clicked the video... Now seeing many flashbacks to the start of my first career.

[@808jpm]

Those cables aren't to special if you have the old (blue, not molded) Cisco console cables, they're the same.

[@jfbeam]

That's exactly what the blue cables do. The black cables were straight-through for connecting modems to the AUX port.

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

Also: Unless cisco has some special hardware that can flip the pins internally, it wouldn't work to connect two octopus RJ45 connectors to each other with a straight RJ45 female-female adapter, or more importantly it wouldn't work connecting the AUX port of two Cisco routers to each other, or for that sake the console port to each other. I.E. even when exclusively using cisco equipment you would need flipped and straight cables. Suggestion to @clabretro: Either make a simple adapter that breaks out each RJ45 pin to a banana jack or just something that you can put alligator clips on, to use with a multimeter, or get one of those RS232 debug thingies with a bunch of LEDs and whatnot, in order to find out what is going on when a serial connection don't work. Btw, flipped and non-flipped cables have been the bane of existence for any type of consumer electronics equipment that uses the same connector for signals in both directions, like for example a tape recorder. The SCART connectors (common on European TVs and whatnot) mostly solved this by defining the pins as in or out rather than things like record and play). However the older DIN connectors had pins defined as record and pins defined as playback, and in some cases you had to use crossover cables to copy between two tape recorders. In other cases you didn't need that, as some tape recorders only connected an output signal to the play pins while in playback, and otherwise used those pins as an extra recording input (with different signal levels - line level recording on the playback pins and microphone level recording on the recording pins)...

[@questionablecommands9423]

Outgrowing your server rack? A 37U rack on casters rolls through most doorways.

[@kc0eks]

Appreciate your audio so much. No lip smack sounds like most you tubers. Loving this content!

[@clabretro]

thanks!

[@skinwalker69420]

@@clabretro make a video of just an hour straight of lip smacking

[@willsarms3]

I love the custom cisco desaturated blue grounded ethernet connectors on the octopus cable, who else but cisco!

[@BlakeRGardner]

Thank you for pausing to explain the port mapping on Telnet to the physical serial ports on the devices and how things are connected. Really helps me grasp how things are stung together.

[@blakebellinger5495]

I've got a bunch of old MRV's in prod in legacy env's. If it ain't broke..They refuse to die. I've got tons of the flat blue cables in bins somewhere, Cisco used to give them away.

[@donaldwilliams6821]

What's funny is you mentioned Cisco being the 'standard' on serial ports, they wire their stuff differently. I work with SANs and when you have to connect to a controller via serial we always have to ask to make sure they aren't using a cisco serial console cable. ;)

[@incandescentwithrage]

Cisco is pretty much the standard across all networking consoles across all brands, but yeah storage and other categories decided to be different, for no apparent advantage. The worst I know of is plugging a "standard" Cisco console cable into an APC UPS resulting in an instant power off of the UPS and everything connected.

[@egohde]

@@incandescentwithrage Glad I am not the only one who made that mistake, my go to story about how old APC UPSs aren't so Uninterruptable. BTW it wasn't just Cisco cables it happens with regular Null Modem cables I had to order the specific APC cable for it to work.

[@Ziraya0]

If you're in it for fun, having a second rack opens up the natural if not necessary opportunity to build out the racks as independent units that then need to be networked together and internally self-sufficient for things like these terminal servers

[@zetasyanthis]

At work we're fortunate enough to have Avocent 8000 series concentrators. 48 ports, HTML5 interface, and auto detecting cable settings. Love them so much. They're absolutely rock solid. :D

[@jamess1787]

vty 0 5 transport input telnet Should get you access to the 2900. 🤜🤛

[@SoundOfWaveform]

Classic reverse telnet configuration. The 2500s are a throw back, they were the first router I touched in a networking vocational class I took growing up. Back at my first job I was supporting a retailer that had modems in each router for backup and OOB management, we had to use HyperTerminal to dial into the router for troubleshooting when the connection was down. Crazy thing that you can do with it is use them with a dial backup configuration if you setup a dialer interface. I always found a router serving an entire lan with a 56K modem that it auto dials a crazy idea as I only though of dialup internet before from the point of a single host calling out.

[@pauldunecat]

You would be surprised how many DECservers are still in use today, especially in hospitals.

[@idahofur]

Ah yes the old serial device is wired differently for each mfg. Battery backup units loved to do that. Before the internet it was sort of a pain. Then again tons of mfgs. would just list the pin out. As for the cat 6 or 5e cable. When I first started into computer and a few places still install new dumb terminals. They used the 9 and or 25 pin to rj 45 adapters with no issue. I believe the flat flat ribbon cable will actually be a shorter distance. To lazy to look it up. I also know the phone company for analog lines was so robust it would run on garbage lines. Thus, when you used even cat 3. It was higher quality than normal line. (Yes I know you have a few exceptions.) Even DSL from the dmarc on the side of the house to the modem loved cat 3. I say cat 3 since I purchased a used box it years ago. Used it to wire all my phone connections. Leave the cat5e and 6 for the good stuff.

[@BAgodmode]

I sure hope this video is about terminal servers.

[@matcha69420]

youre telling me a terminal fried this server?

[@porovaara]

the config works that way because you can set a timeout to reboot, which means when sending big/important/complex changes over you can schedule the router to reboot in X mins if not cancelled. so if you send over some config changes that break connectivity to the router or anything else the changes will be reverted automatically by the timeout reboot. if everything is working, just cancel the reboot. saved my butt more than once.

[@encorespod2135]

Only works if everything you are configuring does the same thing.

[@AtreidaeChibiko]

We used to use these as emergency access paths back when I worked at an ISP If routing stuffed up, we wouldn't exactly telnet into to a console. So we had a modem connected to a terminal server, connected to our core routers and the edge to our management network So if we stuffed something up, we didn't need remote hands to reboot the routers (which only worked if it was a config change obviously) we just dialled up a modem, hit the terminal server and jumped into what ever router my mentor broke :D

[@AtreidaeChibiko]

(Trust me, I broke my fair share of stuff too when I was learning)

[@Nate-hf8hm]

Honestly man, these videos are just great, always good to watch

[@clabretro]

thank you!

[@paulstubbs7678]

MAU - Media Attachment Unit, it connects the port, the AUI to the actual network cable, the media. In the beginning, ethernet cable was a quite thick and almost inflexible cable, you didn't run this to your equipment, it stayed up in the suspended ceiling, or under a raised floor. You used an attachment box, or tap that 'spiked into' that cable, this tap box was then connected to your computer by a way friendlier flexible cable to the AUI port of your computer. Later on they came up with 'Thinnet' that used much thinner coax that was convenient to bring to the back or your computer, so we had these adapter boxes simular to yours, but with BNC connectors on them. Then came 10baseT with the modern RJ45 connectors, and the adapters you have.

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

And in particular with the transceiver/MAU a bit away from the device it was of course just a regular DA15 connector and thus way less risk och breaking the connector if you pull on it. This type of AUI cable can be used with transcievers/MAUs used in this video too! (Not 100% sure but I think that the locking mechanism is intentionally weaker than the regular d-sub screws just so that you "only" screw up the locking mechanism and possibly slightly screw up the connectors if you apply excessive force. I.E. with a set of small pliers it will likely be possible to straighten up any bent pins and whatnot).

[@paulstubbs7678]

@@Thesecret101-te1lm Well if the same connector was used for two different purposes, having dissimilar locking mechanisms would aid in not getting them mixed up with each other, after all there are voltage rails (12V?) on the AUI port, that probably would not do a video monitor any good.

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

@@paulstubbs7678 Good point. PC joysticks use the same connector, but I've never heard of mistakes. Maybe the plastic "shield" of a PC joystic DA15 male connector just collides with the AUI locking mechanism so it won't even go in?

[@paulideez]

I had a 6 line BBS back in the mid 90's and used something call a boca board. it was an IDE card that had a fat cable that hooked up to a 16 port RJ45 breakout box and had 16 RJ45 to 25pin serial ports. it worked like a charm, and i have no idea how i did all that at 16

[@isjoshhere]

Isn't out-of-band (OOB) management fun? Are you thinking of getting a second half-height rack like your existing one, and dedicate it to the Cisco and other clab gear? That should allow the octal cable to reach. Although I wonder if you used CAT5/CAT6 couplers and a patch cable if that could extend the reach? Love the content. Keep it coming.

[@joedry1774]

Never knew you could do "wr". So simple. I was taught "copy run start" in my CCNA but both work on my modern Cisco router

[@andrewdoane6558]

The big connector is v35. It was typically used to connect CSU/DSUs for 56k or T1’s

[@AndrewJoakimsen]

I haven't seen that name in a long time. Back around 2008 we were doing network upgrades after a large bank acquired a smaller one. Found an abandoned closet full of terminal servers. Apparently many years prior they were used for a different application, to link banker's dumb terminals back to the main office. Blockbuster video also used terminal servers. Each store ran a AlpahServer DS10 in the back and the front end ran a PC that booted DOS from a floppy disk. They ran this setup until they went out of business. Must have cost them a fortune to maintain.

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

Nit pick: IT was V35, but the V35 standard expired and thus it's "former v35". Anecdote: A friend had decided to never ever have to have anything to do with V35 in his IT career :D

I'd call it an octo-whip 😎

[@pixitha]

Time to find an Adtran CSU/DCU and do some T1s (with that giant connector), that will go well with the 7206, then you can also do DS3s....so many options!

[@clabretro]

yes!

[@chrismurray5153]

Not sure on the Cisco, but the MRV can also do SSH. SSH is more secure, and allows you to generate authentication cert pairs that can grant transparent pass through on the serial device side. So you ssh to the console switch, have transparent auth, and immediately presented with the console of the connected device. SSH secure auth, telnet basic pass through all encrypted on the ethernet. This works well with expect scripting the remote devices. For the Cisco on the MRV, try where 1 is the port port async 1 no dsr wait port async 1 no flowcontrol port async 1 no banner file port async 1 no autohangup port async 1 name router port async 1 max mirror connections 5

[@clabretro]

definitely! haven't gotten around to trying that out yet

[@Mejuraj]

Question about the dialup system. It would make no more sense than running telephone lines around the house. Take one of the cisco fxs modems and connect it to the existing infrastructure. If nothing else, in case you need to connect dreamcast to dialup in the living room. But I understand, having your own phone system is fun.

[@clabretro]

oh yeah totally. wherever I need a phone line I would just run it over existing CAT6 lines

[@robertclark8351]

When running a pair of 2501, it was useful to connect the aux on each to the console of the other. This allowed using the partner to do disruptive upgrades, etc.

[@UpLateGeek]

I used this on a pair of 2800s we deployed for an event, and thought I was pretty smart for figuring it out until I found out it's a pretty common thing that's been used on pairs of routers for ages.

[@driptopia]

It's part of every network engineer's experience to forget to send the WR command

[@adampope5107]

I gotta use a console server tonight because a partner decided to wipe their router config in our DC. It's going to be boring though because I'm doing nothing but screen sharing so they can reconfigure.

[@gravedigger1454]

As a European, I have severe trauma from the ISDN days....

[@evilborg]

I have watched your videos for a while now and I fear you have fallen into the rabbit hole and will never find a way out again LOL

[@clabretro]

once the analog lines started showing up I was toast

[@evilborg]

@@clabretro gluten for punishment LOL

[@rcxb1]

I'd be more interested in seeing you put together a modern, good solution. Like setup a "software SIP modem server" (there are a few available). With that, one $100 8-port ATA would provide 8 dial-up lines. You could publish SIP credentials and let people buy their own ATAs and configure them to do dial-up to your modem server. You could buy an ATA with "FXO" ports and connect it up to a PSTN landline for old fashioned dial-in. Or buy a T1 PCI card and install in your SIP server.

[@ArvedNet]

Cisco Router as Terminalserver is definetly underrated! My favorite is the ISR 2911 with the HWIC-8A module. The cool thing is you can even do reverse SSH if you dont want telnet.

[@netzwerk-werkstatt332]

My favorite is a 2600xm with NM-32A

[@billcarson9565]

Wow!! just wow! took me back 20 years to when I was studying for my cisco exams! the octopus cable setup using 2 C2509's was such a time saver!! thank you for bringing this back!!

[@starlite528]

You could call it a Hydra cable too, I'm sure!

[@cryptoistheway2738]

You can attach that v.35 cable to an Adtran.

[@unixerius6632]

Back in the day, we used to have Cyclades console/terminal servers. I miss'm, they were pretty cool!

[@robertclark8351]

8P8C, and the signal levels are the same as RS-232.

[@arizonapalms]

I've been on the hunt for a Cisco 2500 for my homelab for 2 years. So hard to find in Australia, and when they do come up the recyclers that list them on eBay want $$$$$. I just have a separate VLAN for management now where I can telnet into basically everything now anyway or access the GUIs but still... I yearn for the 2500

[@clabretro]

oof. I'd ship you that 2501 but I'm guessing you want one with an async port?

[@arizonapalms]

​@@clabretro Thanks but It would probably cost a kidney just to send it to me down under!

[@ziginox]

Huh, quite a coincidence. I was just looking up how to do this with a modern Cisco switch. Yes, you can still do it.

[@DECcomputers]

Thanks for the video, nice to see different terminal servers :) The popular terminal servers from DEC use RJ45 for serial connection in more recent products (e.g. DECserver 90M, in older products they used MMJ) an they have a different pinout than cisco as well. I had to build new cables for that devices...

[@thedopplereffect00]

Something beautiful and satisfying about creating a collection of networking equipment that all inter operates perfectly, and yet it has no real purpose :)

[@TylerLasagna]

either a Cisco or eBay sponsorship must be in the realm of possibility at this rate 🤣

[@drgti16v]

When I used to work on Cisco equipment, I would do all my configs in a text editor then copy and paste the config into the device. That way if I didn't do a "wr t", or a "copy run start", I would have a back copy of the config.

[@____________________________.x]

I used a bunch of old DECnet terminal servers for three factories full of serial terminals. I remember those aui dongles too

[@metalwolf112002]

You can make a "poor mans" terminal server using a low power device like a raspberry pi and a program called "conserver." Previously I used a pogoplug running debian linux, but recently i switched it over to a wyse 3040 running debian linux. I have a 7 port usb hub with a bunch of usb to serial cables connected. This morning, i used the last open port to connect the serial port on my dell kvm. (I blame/thank clabretro for this purchase. i picked it up off ebay after i seen his video on them.) I plan on upgrading to a much larger hub.

[@vilhalmer]

I used to work at a company that I'm fairly sure had the largest conserver deployment in the world and can definitely recommend it. Thousands of devices with an autogenerated configuration and barely ever even gave us hiccups. The ability to spy on connections while other people (or automation) uses the port is super useful.

[@BestSpatula]

I use conserver on Linux w a 16 port usb adapter.

[@paulstubbs7678]

An interesting pile of equipment, that large serial connector is called a V35 connecter, they used them at the telco I worked for when they went over 9600, back then. Later on we had these D15 connectors, way more compact, for higher speeds. Those terminal servers are fairly common, I've been trying to track down the opposite, one that can connect multiple terminals to the net, no that hard to find back then. Most retro computers have serial ports, but not network ports, so one of these would alow me to telnet out on the internet with my retro boxes. Yes I could use something like a raspberry pi to do this, but they are way too new. Also a 64bit processor with 8meg or memory, just for comms for an 8 bit computer that is supposed to be the star of the show...... something is not quite right here.

[@paulstubbs7678]

The D15 connector is 'X.21', for differential synchronous comms up to 10Mbits, see Wikipedia

[@callmebigpapa]

Java, my old nemesis! We meet again. wait.....you have a pots line? still?

[@clabretro]

No real pots line! Being created by that other Cisco gear on top of the rack.

[@MrHack4never]

My first thought when reading "terminal server" was a server for a bunch of terminals, not the other way round Also, if the octocable isn't long enough, you could use rj45 extension leads/gender changers, or just cut off the existing plugs and replace them with keystones like some sort of barbarian

[@eDoc2020]

I'd imagine most of these terminal servers would also work how you describe., where a serial connection initiates a network connection. Hardware-wise it's the same, just a software config difference.

[@friskyfiskey3270]

It’s interesting that you can just hook up console access to your network. Seems like a security risk to me, surprised it’s so common! Maybe then likelihood of attack is outweighed by time/cost savings for management?

[@clabretro]

yeah you'd definitely have that locked down at a minimum on a management VLAN. luckily I don't have to worry too much about security down here on my own LAN 😂

[@fxp0]

I used to use a Cisco AS2511-RJ which was a 16 port version of the 2509 but instead of the breakout cables, it had (normal wired!) RJ45 connectors on the back.

[@t1nUK1]

Still have one in my lab today, in reasonably regular use. Have the green cables that are used here too which made me wonder about the pinout comments about the MRV.

[@robsyoutube]

Oh man I haven't seen one of these since I was in highschool. I love your videos. You should do one on a cisco 5500 series next. They are boat anchors compared to the 6500 that replaced them but still awesome.

[@tripplefives1402]

Buy one of those groovy ibm racks that have crazy looking front panels

[@generallyunimportant]

true

[@tripplefives1402]

Buy one of those groovy ibm racks that have crazy looking front panels

[@generallyunimportant]

bestie

[@tripplefives1402]

Buy one of those groovy ibm racks that have crazy looking front panels

[@generallyunimportant]

so

[@rcxb1]

I can't see why you'd want to subject yourself to all that old, painfully primitive gear. I was so happy to get away from it as soon as I could. Your struggles with card/module compatibility are giving me PTSD rather than nostalga...

[@tdkyt46]

Cant you just use those keystone adapters and any ordinary cat6 cables to extend the squid anywhere tou want?

[@clabretro]

definitely! I just figured if I'm going to rack this older stuff up in the future it'd be nice to have it all within reach of the cable

[@ianwilson3935]

OOB Management (out of band). Also, you put an RJ45 pass through patch panel in so you can extend as far as you want

[@ukemi-]

it’s amazing how long these cables / adapters / switches / routers work for. if these were made today, they’d probably break by the time their warranty ends. this was a time when (most) companies cared about their customers more than they cared about revenue.

[@jfbeam]

Indeed. It's why Cisco has become such an ass at "erasing history". Once something is end-of-support, they delete just about everything about it from their systems... starting with the IOS images. Granted, with the speeds of modern networks, most things over a decade old are just too slow. But when you don't care about (or need) high speeds, these things just keep on kicking.

[@Thetinkist]

Hunny, wake up Clabretro dropped a new video

[@WiihawkPL]

so all of your routers are now terminally online

[@pauldunecat]

When you find out there are RJ45 to RJ45 couplers, so you can take the end of the console cable and just extend it with a regular patch cable... I have a cat5 one in my bag, that I've had for 30 years, still works great when you need it.

[@r6u356une56ney]

The 2509 is just a router too. The serial ports are just interfaces like anything else. They could have modems connected and run PPP or something to accept dialup connections to IP.

[@Veeb0rg]

Finally a clabretro video that didn't have me shopping on ebay! We use Cisco at work. We use the Aux port on the routers in remote stations to connect to the console of a server or other router. I have several of those same brand AUI adapters that I got from work. They are very nicely made.

[@spikeypineapple552]

So you have a POTS service to a dial up modem connected to the terminal server, and if conectivity goes down you dial into the terminal server as OOB?

[@ShainAndrews]

MRV... that's a blast from the past. I see MRV was acquired by Adva... Another blast from the past. I see Adva was acquired by Adtran... Yet another blast from the past.

[@ToxicwasteProductions]

My yank solution to this is to have a laptop with USB hub attached and then I plug all the gear into the USB ports with serial to USB cables. I have my pfsense and my main switch there today. Works pretty sweet. Have it on a different network just incase I need to issue reload or something then I won't loose the remote control of that laptop.

[@Seris_]

We use opengear console routers in my datacenter. They have 48 ports so we have pretty much everything (critical) hooked up to them

[@der.Schtefan]

Ahhhhhhh, I just had a reality flash when I saw the rj45 rs232 adapter! I realized that I am 41 now and old and my youth, when I made my CCNP certification, is over, and now I am grumpy, and everything hurts, and Clinton is no longer president, and the towers have fallen, and did I mention that EVERYTHING HURTS?

[@Deraco1]

Classic clabretro video lol Yes a lot of other network equipment to this day (mostly enterprise stuff) has a running and startup config that you need to save from > to. I think they do that so if you did something bad like lock yourself our, or blow something up, a simple power cycle will go to the last config. I remember configuring a HP v1920 switch back in ze day when I was fairly green in IT and forgot to hit save on the GUI (because the save config was very small an out of the way text), the client lost power and then the change that I set, blew up and the vlan stopped working. Fun times lol Love me some telnet/SSH inception fun as well!

[@s_SoNick]

Seeing the MRV name gave me mild PTSD... A company I work with has MRV Optiswitches that are kind of notorious for their unreliability.

[@chemmerling]

AUI to Fiber was used a lot in AppleTalk to Ethernet bridges. It's very interesting. AUI on older Cisco routers was awesome... think SFP but 90's.

[@TomStorey96]

You can consolidate the POTS and modern stuff into a single chassis. I think I posted a while back the bits and pieces you need. Namely NM-xDM digital modern module, PVDMs, NM-1CE1T1-PRI, and VWIC2-2MFT-T1/E1 I think it was. You'll probably need something like a 3825 to put it all in, bit you can have a CO and dialup ISP in a box with it. :-) There are longer octopus cables available if the idea you have are too short, or better yet, sacrifice one and terminate each tail onto a keystone jack in a patch panel.

[@michaelloving8004]

fun fact Cisco made Cisco 2600 Terminal Access Server NM-16A 2xCAB-OCTAL-ASYNC 2511 1 which has two 10/100 ports I thought you'd like to know 2600 was the first modular router if I'm correct most commonly overlooked or forgotten cmd wr mem lol

[@slightlyevolved]

One reason why I won't get rid of my Avocent DSR IP-KVM. Not only do I get any mix of PS2/VGA or USB/VGA for console, but I also have RS232 modules and it can do serial terminals. If only I had the DSVIEW software e so I could activate virtual cdrom...

[@invictus0x0]

From my memory, there is a few cisco ways to do this, if you want slightly less outdated (read 10base-t built-in) you can toss a NM-16A or NM-32 into a 2600 series or an HWIC-8A or HWIC-16A into a 2800 series if you want a 1gbit eth link. love to see 2500's they were tanks, btw you can update that old 2500 all the way to 12.3(26) bringing you up to 2007-8ish. ;-)

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

Also isn’t MIDI serial too? Maybe you can perform some kind of cool magic with it? MIDI over dial up 😅

[@joshuabrazile]

Wow, I’ve worked in IT since 2005 and didn’t know these existed 😅. Granted, I’ve generally only needed access to a single console port at a time in my work, but it would have been cool to play with one of these.

[@RichardBetel]

It's been a long time since I last saw a 2501... those serial ports could do a T1 or an E1, so an ISDN trunck speed, but as I recall, they absolutely could not do ISDN signaling. It was a serial port, but not a PRI. I miss those great big chunky square connectors. they we so freaking reliable! Unlike the AUI slide-lock.

[@samsthomas]

ATI made some good Ethernet kit back in the day. My first 10Base-T hub was an 8 port ATI. You could hurt somebody with that thing. I still have a pair of those transceivers in my “just in case” legacy cable and connector box. My home-lab terminal server is a 2511RJ.

[@jp-ny2pd]

You need to search for T1 CSU/DSU with a V.35 connector for that pre-historic monster. Maybe you could then work on having the CSU/DSU bridge over an HDSL line cards for WAN networking in one segment. You could have a complete 90s dialup infrastructure on a single sheet of plywood. Just like how it was done in garages and strip malls all over the country :)

[@kurosudo8762]

The behaviour of MRV can be accomplish with DIY method, you just need some kind of computer for example Raspberry Pi, and many USB Serial cables or just internal serial ports. There is ancient program named ser2net, which exposes these serial lines via Telnet, same like MRV. I think even MRV uses this program, and just mades a fancy java GUI.

[@connomar55]

As soon as I saw that 10BaseT to AUI adapter my mind went into rewind to 1990. At that time, it would have been 10Base2 - the coaxial version, with T connectors, terminators and the myriad of things that made it fragile. Also had the 10Base5 cables and transceivers with a AUI drop cable. There were so many products emerging, such as Token Ring and FDDI. I built an FDDI Based Network only to learn that 100BaseT had just been demonstrated. Happy days.

[@jroysdon]

We still have about a dozen Cisco 2511 (or similar) devices each supporting 16 power substations (each are redundant, with auto-switching devices that can toggle a the backup serial path to the other terminal server). 1200 baud over 4-wire audio is just fine and way more isolating/segmented vs. IP connectivity. Where we have gone to IP connectivity it requires us to install firewall devices that VPN traffic to the remote locations and add a considerable expense (but is justified for larger substations). As we have large server-sized UPS and large generators, most of these have 10+ year uptimes. They'd have 20+ year uptimes, except we had a pipe burst related to our buidling-wide HVAC and had to shutdown the entire data center during repair. These things run 10mbit half-duplex and only support telnet access, no ssh. But they just run, forever. I think we've had 4 fail in the past 20 years. We keep spares so easily swap them out.

[@yzmey42113]

It's also possible to get an Async-32A module for the squid cable, and insert it into a 2600. I'm using a 2610XM in my lab as an access server, with 1 FastEthernet (100 Mbps) interface for telnet connections. The 2500 access server has only 10 Mbps Ethernet.

[@cmritchie04]

What are my options for a windows 11 machine(s) but I want to put a dial-up modem on a network? Yes, I still use a fax....

[@megidont]

It interests me to see that Octopus cable - it's almost reminiscent of the micro-d octopus cable that StarTech has a pair of on their 16 port PCIe RS-232 card (that I've been drooling over for a few years lol). Do you know if this one uses either a VHDCI (like I think the StarTech card uses) or a MD68 connector?

[@ssokolow]

If I rememeber my childhood geekery correctly, once 10Base-2 and 10Base-T came on the scene, the idea behind providing only an AUI port was to save money on expensive network cards by making you only buy the transciever circuitry for the kind of physical-layer Ethernet (eg. thicknet, thinnet, twisted pair) that you actually intended to use. Of course, integration and economies of scale being what they are, it quickly became cheaper to just include all three ports on your 3Com EtherLink III or what have you than to make you buy a card and a separate MAU.

[@cattythecat9161]

Damn.... You got a high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) with your stuff? How did you get this? 😉😉 Its good, she supports you 😍