Lab : Mini User's Guide for Cyclades console server

Cyclades Mini User's Guide

These instructions should not be a substitute for reading the User's Guide. But they give a few clues on what to search for in the User's Guide and Reference Guide.

Connecting to a console via SSH

You connect to the console server via ssh. Upon successful authentication you are then connected to the desired serial console port. The connection from your remote machine to the console server is protected via ssl. Your authentication to the console server is verified via Kerberos 5. Unfortunately, you can't use K5 tickets to authenticate to the console server. (Not that I could determine.) The pam configuration on the console server requires that you have a local account on it before it will allow the "Kerberos authentication". See "Adding new users to the console server" below to create new local users.

To connect to a "properly" configured machine via its serial console, enter:

ssh <userid>:<targethost>@curator.citi.umich.edu

or a more concrete example:

ssh kwc:babylon@curator.citi.umich.edu

To disconnect from the console session, the escape sequence is

~.

Remember that only one connection at a time is allowed to any particular console port. Release it when you are finished!

Configuring a new machine to use the console server

The file /etc/portslave/pslave.conf holds the configuration for each of the console server ports. At the end of this file are port-specific settings for each port. Here you may name a port to be the same as the machine it connects with. When you add a new machine or change ports around, make sure to update this file. Here is an example of the entry for babylon: #---------------- # Port 17 #---------------- s17.tty ttyS17 s17.serverfarm babylon

The serverfarm parameter defines a name for the port.

After editing the configuration file, the changes need to be enabled and then saved to permanent (flash) storage. (Remember that the terminal server machine runs on a ramdisk, so changes to the filesystem must be saved to permanent storage.)

The following commands enable the configuration changes and then saves them to permanent (flash) storage.

# signal_ras hup # saveconf

Adding new users to the console server

To add a new user to the console server, get on the console server machine as root, and enter the command: adduser [OPTIONS] <login name> And a concrete example... # adduser billybob # passwd billybob which adds a new user, billybob, and sets a local password for the user.

The resulting passwd and shadow files must now be enabled and saved:

# signal_ras hup # saveconf