[ale] Serial ports on 1U machines [was: Re: 1U server question]

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On Wed 2007-10-24 08:32:42 -0400, Jim Lynch wrote:

> None of them, that I've looked at, mention a serial port which was
> what I thought one might use to communicate with the bios.

Really?  Can you provide links to the specs for machines that don't
have serial ports?  Every 1U server i've dealt with in the last
several years years (even the occasional Mac X-Serve) has at least one
classic DB9M serial port.  Those things are super robust, very
low-level, require minimal BIOS tweaking, and aren't published on the
global internet (remote console via IP is crazy unless you've got a
totally isolated LAN).

IMHO, serial ports are the ideal for a system console that should be
available in an emergency, and remain mostly untouched until then.

Full Disclosure: a friend of mine and i use serial lines quite
heavily, and wrote a package ("cereal") to conveniently manage
rackfuls of serial-console machines.  It's introduced here:

 https://www.debian-administration.org/articles/554

        --dkg
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