Home Lab Terminal Server

Until now I had my Cisco-devices console connected to a windows-pc. It was easy but not as flexible as I wanted since I had to rdp to it when I wasn´t at home and use a putty to serial port inside that rdp-session.

So I found an old laptop, installed linux on it (actually Backtrack 3) and connected my Usb2Serial-connectors to the USB-port via an USB-hub. They popped up as tty-ports within seconds:


Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.1: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.1: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB1
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.1: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB2
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.1: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB3
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.2: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB4
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.2: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB5
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.2: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB6
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.2: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB7
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.3: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB8
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.3: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB9
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.3: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB10
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.3: Moschip 7840/7820 USB Serial Driver converter now attached to ttyUSB11
Apr 19 22:21:11 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.4.3: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB12
Apr 19 22:30:36 (none) kernel: usb 1-4.4.2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB13

The easiest way (that I´ve found out. I am not a Linux-exert) to connect to the serial-port is by using screen. Like this:


bt ~ # screen /dev/ttyUSB8

I created a few scripts/aliases to simplify this:


bt ~ # ls -l
total 732968
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 22 Apr 19 23:08 fw*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21 Apr 19 23:08 r1*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21 Apr 19 23:08 r2*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21 Apr 19 23:08 r3*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21 Apr 19 23:08 sw*
..
..
..
bt ~ #
bt ~ # cat r1
screen /dev/ttyUSB6
bt ~ #
bt ~ # cat r2
screen /dev/ttyUSB0
bt ~ #
bt ~ # cat r3
screen /dev/ttyUSB9
bt ~ #

After opening ssh-access thru my internet-firewall I can now access my home lab from anywhere by just creating one or multiple ssh-sessions and connect to each serial port by using the aliases. Or even create multiple connection entries in my terminal software and configure each one with a script that executes “r1” or “r2” and so on after login.I exit each session with CTRL-A + K.

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