_____________________________________________________________________
724-746-5500 | blackbox.com
Page 67
Once you have added all the Slave
console server
s, you can assign and access the Slave serial ports and
the connected devices from the Master’s Management Console menu. You can also access them
through the Master’s IP address.
Select the appropriate
Serial & Network: Serial Port
and
Edit
to configure the serial ports on the
Slave.
Select the appropriate
Serial & Network: Users & Groups
to add new users with access
privileges to the Slave serial ports (or to extend existing users’ access privileges).
Select the appropriate
Serial & Network: Trusted Networks
to specify network addresses that
can access nominated Slave serial ports .
Select the appropriate
Alerts & Logging: Alerts
to configure Slave port Connection, State
Change, or Pattern Match alerts.
The configuration changes made on the Master are propagated out to all the Slaves when you
click
Apply
.
4.6.4 Managing the Slaves
The Master is in control of the Slave serial ports. For example, if you change
User
access privileges or
edit any serial port setting on the Master, the updated configuration files will be sent out to each Slave
in parallel. Each Slave will then automatically make changes to its local configuration (and only make
those changes that relate to its particular serial ports).
You can still use the local Slave Management Console to change the settings on any Slave serial port
(such as alter the baud rates). These changes will be overwritten next time the Master sends out a
configuration file update.
Also, while the Master is in control of all Slave serial port related functions, it is not master over the
Slave network host connections or over the Slave
console server
system itself.
You must access each Slave directly to manage Slave functions such as IP, SMTP & SNMP Settings, Date
&Time, and DHCP server. These functions are not overwritten when configuration changes are
propagated from the Master. Similarly, you have to configure the Slaves Network Host and IPMI settings
at each Slave.
The Master’s Management Console provides a consolidated view of the settings for its own and all the
Slave’s serial ports. The Master does not provide a fully consolidated view. For example, if you want to
find out who's logged in to cascaded serial ports from the master, you’ll see that
Status: Active Users
only displays those users active on the Master’s ports, so you may need to write custom scripts to
provide this view. This is covered in Chapter 11.
4.7 Serial Port Redirection
To allow an application on a client PC to access the virtual serial ports on the console server, you need to
run client software (to redirect the local serial port traffic to remote
console server
serial port).
There’s a selection of commercial software available including
Serial to Ethernet
from Eltima
(www.eltima.com) and
Serial/IP™ COM Port Redirector
from Tactical Software
(www.tacticalsoftware.com/products/serialip.htm).
