Console Server
Starting of with VyOS 1.3 (equuleus) we added support for running VyOS as an Out-of-Band Management device which provides remote access by means of SSH to directly attached serial interfaces.
Serial interfaces can be any interface which is directly connected to the CPU or chipset (mostly known as a ttyS interface in Linux) or any other USB to serial converter (Prolific PL2303 or FTDI FT232/FT4232 based chips).
If you happened to use a Cisco NM-16A - Sixteen Port Async Network Module or NM-32A - Thirty-two Port Async Network Module - this is your VyOS replacement.
For USB port information please refor to: USB.
Configuration
Between computers, the most common configuration used was “8N1”: eight bit characters, with one start bit, one stop bit, and no parity bit. Thus 10 Baud times are used to send a single character, and so dividing the signalling bit-rate by ten results in the overall transmission speed in characters per second. This is also the default setting if none of those options are defined.
Configure either seven or eight data bits. This defaults to eight data bits if left unconfigured.
A user friendly description identifying the connected peripheral.
Set the parity option for the console. If unset this will default to none.
Configure either one or two stop bits. This defaults to one stop bits if left unconfigured.
Note
USB to serial converters will handle most of their work in software so you should be carefull with the selected baudrate as some times they can’t cope with the expected speed.
Remote Access
Each individual configured console-server device can be directly exposed to the outside world. A user can directly connect via SSH to the configured port.
Accept SSH connections for the given <device> on TCP port <port>. After successfull authentication the user will be directly dropped to the connected serial device.
Hint
Multiple users can connect to the same serial device but only one is allowed to write to the console port.
Operation
Show configured serial ports and their respective interface configuration.
vyos@vyos:~$ show console-server ports
usb0b2.4p1.0 on /dev/serial/by-bus/usb0b2.4p1.0@ at 9600n
Show currently connected users.
vyos@vyos:~$ show console-server user
usb0b2.4p1.0 up vyos@localhost
Locally connect to serial port identified by <device>.
vyos@vyos-r1:~$ connect console usb0b2.4p1.0
[Enter `^Ec?' for help]
[-- MOTD -- VyOS Console Server]
vyos-r2 login:
Hint
Multiple users can connect to the same serial device but only one is allowed to write to the console port.
Hint
The sequence ^Ec? translates to: Ctrl+E c ?. To quit
the session use: Ctrl+E c .