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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Apple

Turning Your Mac Into a Serial Console Server 60

Posted by timothy from the platinum-anchor dept.
chrisbw writes "Want to put that old VT100 terminal to use? Mac OS X Hits has a story on how to make a couple simple changes in OS X to enable login on a serial terminal (even over a USB serial adapter if you're on a newer mac). Cool trick for adding a text-based web surfing or email terminal in another room, or remote iTunes control!"
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Turning Your Mac Into a Serial Console Server More

Turning Your Mac Into a Serial Console Server

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  • very usefull (Score:1, Informative)

    by a5cii ( 620929 )
    for educational establishments instead of usimng big sparcs it could come in handy

  • Not much point (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
    Yeah, at one time I got really excited about rigging up some cables to hook a VT220 up to my Linux box.

    Problem is, there just isn't much point. Computers are *cheap* these days, and finding a used computer from the masses out there made in the last twenty years is easy. You can use any x86 box ever *made* as a good terminal emulator, and get color and other goodies the VT doesn't provide.

    There are lots of terminal emulation programs, though if you have 4 MB of memory on the thing or more, I'd probably r

    • Re:Not much point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DavidS ( 31112 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @12:29PM (#6544756)
      I think you've missed the point entirely.
      This also goes in with the story being mis-named. One of the nicer things about having serial console access to your machine is you have the ability to do things like if you were directly at the console... I don't think you're going to drop your system to single user mode while using the network. Or, if you're configureing something, and you accidentally mess up network connectivity, its a very nice backup. Also, on real hardware like suns, you can send serial breaks over the line, get into firmware, and do what is necessary, whether it be synching the machine due to crash, or whatever.

      This story is also missnamed.. a serial console server is a server with a lot of serial ports on it :) (used to connect all your serial console machines togother)

      Now, I'm not entirely sure what the use of a serial console is under osx, but the impression I'm getting is that its getting a bit more useful each revision of that OS. But under any other unix, not having a serial console in a production enviroment is just asking for trouble.

      David

      • Re:Not much point (Score:2, Informative)

        by Curtman ( 556920 )
        I'm not sure he's the one that missed the point.. A 486 has serial ports too.

        1 used 486 = $0 to $25
        1 home made null modem cable = ~$2

        For about the same price [ebay.com], the 486 [ebay.com] is also capable of functioning as an X terminal with sound, etc, like he said.

        • Re:Not much point (Score:5, Interesting)

          by MasonMcD ( 104041 ) <masonmcd@ma[ ]om ['c.c' in gap]> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @04:46PM (#6546419) Homepage
          I'm not sure he's the one that missed the point.. A 486 has serial ports too.

          Right, but this is just another chink in the argument that "we can't let you work on a mac because we still need x86 to do "

          The more it takes on the functionality of a regular *nix (and the fewer handrolled apps your company has) the more likely you can use a mac, if that's what you prefer.

          • Re:Not much point (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Curtman ( 556920 )
            I see. I guess I did miss the point as well. I see now that the original article was intended to make use of a serial terminal that one already owns, not suggesting that anyone actually attempt to purchase one. My point, and the grandparent to my post was that a cheap PC would make a much better terminal than a Wyse or similar terminal regarless of the OS of the server. In fact the last time I tried to replace the keyboard for a wyse-60, I found I could replace the whole thing with a 486 with Linux for
          • Right, but this is just another chink in the argument that "we can't let you work on a mac because we still need x86 to do "

            Oh, come *on*. This is mindless Apple fanaticism. I didn't say anything about replacing Macs with x86 boxes. My entire argument was simple -- (a) there are a lot of very cheap old x86 boxes floating around and (b) they make good terminal emulators. The old 286 or what have you is competing against the VT220 in this case, not the Mac. Surely you don't have a problem with replacin

          • Re:Not much point (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @03:19AM (#6549029) Journal
            Right, but this is just another chink in the argument that "we can't let you work on a mac because we still need x86 to do "

            Wouldn't the same trick work nice with some older serial equipped Macs (i.e. the 68k cuties)?
            • The simple fact with that is that those are now considered antique and actually worth money now! It would run you quite a lot to get one, well... one that functioned not as a fish bowl or something froofy like that.

    • Re:Not much point (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cyb97 ( 520582 ) <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Sunday July 27, 2003 @05:02PM (#6546512) Homepage Journal
      And a bigger electricity bill, more noise and more heat...
      VT-terminals (220s; not 100s!) are perfect for email terminals around the house, and excellent as a secondary (or more) screen for using BitchX/irssi... So instead of being limited to a dual-head setup... you can have as many heads as you want, some of them even with keyboards ;-)

    • Re:Not much point (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rohanl ( 152781 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @01:20AM (#6548666)
      There are problems using PCs as dumb terminals. I remember a while ago at work we had a couple of Windows PCs hooked up to some Sun boxes, as dumb terminals. Of course the Windows PCs needed rebooting every now and then. Each time we rebooted them the Suns stopped.

      We discovered that the PCs were sending a BREAK on the serial port, when they got rebooted. Once the came back up again, we'd find the Sun box sitting at the open firmware prompt:

      ok>
      Once we knew the problem, we could just unplug the PC before rebooting, but there were still lots of times someone forgot to do that.

      It was VERY annoying

      • Re:Not much point (Score:2, Informative)

        by sysjkb ( 574960 )
        No need to unplug the PC. You can just disable the break- signal-stops-sun with kbd -a disable.

        Want it persistant after a reboot? Modify the settings in /etc/default/kbd

        Wheeling back on topic, Mac USB-serial adapters advertised as such are kind of pricey. However, you can also buy a less capable USB-serial adapter advertised for use with serial palms and so forth. Generally, they're not as good, but will still do the trick.

        Yours truly,
        Jeffrey Boulier

  • Hehe (Score:5, Funny)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @01:33PM (#6545261) Homepage
    I just bought a second-hand iMac to replace the terminal next to my bed. I can now browse with Mozilla instead of Lynx, in bed, and have many good dreams afterwards :-)

    • Re:Hehe (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can now browse with Mozilla instead of Lynx, in bed, and have many good dreams afterwards :-)

      Good dreams indeed. What is it you're doing in bed that you need a graphics-capable browser, you deve?

    • You would have been better served by a laptop with pcimcia wifi.

  • Palm terminal emulation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by General Sherman ( 614373 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @03:05PM (#6545783) Journal
    Here's a thought. I could get an old iBook hooked up to a really nice stereo system through a USB converter, and set up this terminal thing, but is there a way to control it through a PDA that supports Wi-Fi, like the Tungsten W? Any terminal emulation software on those?

    Because it would be nifty as hell to be able to control all 10GB's of my music through a nice little portable PDA acting as a sort of "remote". Anyone know of terminal emulation software for a Palm?

    • Re:Palm terminal emulation? (Score:4, Informative)

      by zachlipton ( 448206 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @05:22PM (#6546620)

      You might be able to cook something up with a Palm and a USB audio converter, but you wouldn't need a serial console to do it. However, here's a better idea:

      Get the SliMP3 [slimdevices.com]. It connects to your stero system and has an ethernet port on the back. Grab a Linksys WET11 and it's wireless if you can't run ethernet to your stereo for some reason. It works with iTunes and you can keep all your music in one place.

    • You should be able to get abluetooth dongle that will allow remote control functionallity. www.macosxhints is the best place to start for any technical osx knowledge.

    • Re:Palm terminal emulation? (Score:4, Informative)

      by cfoster611 ( 219409 ) * on Sunday July 27, 2003 @09:04PM (#6547720) Homepage
      There's always TopGunSSH [offshore.com.ai]. Its a old-school Palm SSH program, so you can get the command line on Palm. When I connect to my Mac OS X box with it (over TCP/IP mind you, though i think it can still do serial communication. Check out TopGunTelnet for pure-serial emulation.), tcsh by default has problems, most noticeably it seems to not to be able to run Pico or Vi (let alone Emacs).
      I havn't messed around with it enough; i've only used it in cases where i need to a little command line hacking from my Treo.
    • Sounds interesting, thinking about it. The thing is that I already have the OS X on the laptop with airport and an airport network set up at my house, and I was planning to get a palm.

      Just wondering if there was any way to control my mac through the palm over the 802.11b connection. If I can, I'll get the Tungsten W because 802.11b is built into it, negating the need for 3rd party connectors that often have weird requirements or restrictions.

  • geez? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What's the point? This would've been interesting 10 years ago, but nowadays it's pointless.

    You can get to your Mac console on ethernet via the firmware shell (I don't remember exactly how but it's there), so you don't need a serial console for that.

    And as for surfing and listening to MP3s, I have Opera on my Zaurus with a wireless connection, talking to the SLiMP3 web server. From there I can control the music on ANY computer or SLiMP3 in the house (PS: the slimp3 software rocks and doesn't require the sl

    • Re:geez? (Score:5, Funny)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @04:55PM (#6546469)
      I can even stream music to my neighbor's PC and control the music from my Z. Now THAT'S a story!

      It would really be a story if you could do this without his knowledge. Hehehe... suddenly, Celine Dion plays through his speakers at top volume, and he can't turn it off....

      • Re:geez? (Score:3, Funny)

        by saintlupus ( 227599 )
        It would really be a story if you could do this without his knowledge. Hehehe... suddenly, Celine Dion plays through his speakers at top volume, and he can't turn it off....

        I don't think I'm ever getting a shell account again on one of my friend's machines because of that.

        "Hey, look, a whole directory full of reggae MP3s. And he's got mpg123 installed. Ah, it's only 2am, I'm sure Steve's still up."

        For the record, it's not something people find amusing.

        --saint
      • It would really be a story if you could do this without his knowledge.
        Just what we need... Weapons of Musical Destruction.
      • OMG, wouldn't that be considered weapons of mass destruction? George Dubya be kikin yer door down homez.

        GW: "WTF YO?!?"
        You: "Chill. WTF you want biznatch!"
        GW: "Heard you MOABed your homie next door with some WMD!"
        You: "WMD?!? WHERE?"
        GW: "Celine Dion's Christmas Album, yo. You coming to Guantanamo dude."
    • Try one of these [sena.com] with one of these [realweasel.com]. A $500/server solution... but it'll work. You could get a multiport serial ethernet server for a lower per-server cost.

  • Ah, the good old days... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chief Typist ( 110285 ) on Sunday July 27, 2003 @10:18PM (#6548034) Homepage
    Finally, a reason to port Rogue [wikipedia.org] to Mac OS X!

  • If you really want old school... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bennomatic ( 691188 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @12:01AM (#6548410) Homepage
    I know a company that still offers UUCP dial-up service if you want it badly enough...

    I don't mean to be a troll here, but I have to agree with other posters that, beyond saying "I can do that", there are limited uses for this outside of a server environment. And in the server environment, Apple has the XServe, which, IIRC, has a serial console port built in.

    But you gotta love that someone has done it, I guess.

    • The fact that Apple tries to do anyting which actually helps others, albeit the small group of others who actually need it, speaks a lot about their business model. Yes, there are plenty of geeks out there who don't need help with this, whch is why I credit Apple for their effort.

  • real serial console? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GrumpyOldMan ( 140072 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @09:55AM (#6550271)
    OK, so the article tells us how to enable logins from a serial port. That's great, but that's really only 1/2 the battle.

    For various reasons (mainly driver development in a cramped office), I like to run serial CONSOLES. This means I want to see the kernel messages on the serial port, not on a VGA monitor. This allows me to log all kernel messages, even messages from a machine which crashed (hence syslog is not running). Otherwise, its easy for important messages to scroll off screen and be lost when the system crashes.

    When running linux, getting a serial console is as simple as passing some parameters to the kernel (console=ttyS0). Similar options exist for FreeBSD, Tru64, Solaris, etc. All of them will use a serial port for a console.

    With OS-X, I've been able to enable some extra verbosity on the serial port, and I'm able to get
    an openfirmware prompt on the serial port, but I can't figure out how to make the serial port the actual system console. I know it must be possible, because the X serves are supposed to be able to do it.

    Does anybody know how to do this on a "normal" g4 with a serial port (g4port)??

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