conserver/FAQ
2001-05-03 06:44:08 -07:00

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Conserver FAQ
=============
This is the Conserver FAQ. Any suggestions/corrections/etc should be
directed to faq@conserver.com. The FAQ answers the following questions:
1) What is conserver?
2) Where can I find the software?
3) How do I deal with these serial ports?
4) How can I tell what compile-time defaults were used?
5) What does "conserver: getservbyname: conserver: No such file or
directory" mean (or something close to that)?
6) What does "console: gethostbyname: console: host lookup error"
mean (or something close to that)?
7) How do I set up a serial port for no parity?
1) What is conserver?
From an email I quickly wrote to a potential user (I'll try and
clean it up and make it a little clearer sometime soon):
Conserver is an application that allows multiple users to watch a
serial console at the same time. It can log the data, allows users
to take write-access of a console (one at a time), and has a
variety of bells and whistles to accentuate that basic
functionality. The idea is that conserver will log all your serial
traffic so you can go back and review why something crashed, look
at changes (if done on the console), or tie the console logs into a
monitoring system (just watch the logfiles it creates). With
multi-user capabilities you can work on equipment with others,
mentor, train, etc. It also does all that client-server stuff so
that, assuming you have a network connection, you can interact with
any of the equipment from home or wherever.
2) Where can I find the software?
The latest version can be found at http://www.conserver.com/
3) How do I wire/hook up serial ports?
David "Zonker" Harris has a wonderful set of pages that talk about
hooking up many types of terminal servers, equipment, etc. It also
provides links to other serial port references. You can find his
pages at http://www.conserver.com/consoles/.
Celeste Stokely also has a wealth of references at
http://www.stokely.com/. Just look around and be amazed at what
you'll find!
4) How can I tell what compile-time defaults were used?
The compile-time defaults can be found by running conserver and
console with the -V flag. Simple as that.
5) What does "conserver: getservbyname: conserver: No such file or
directory" mean (or something close to that)?
When conserver was compiled, it was told to use the /etc/services
entry of "conserver" (what came after getservbyname:). You'll need
to either recompile conserver and hard-code a port number (using
PORT instead of SERVICE in conserver/cons.h) or enter "conserver"
in /etc/services.
6) What does "console: gethostbyname: console: host lookup error"
mean (or something close to that)?
When the console command was compiled, it was told to use the
hostname "console" (what came after gethostbyname:) as the master
conserver host. You'll need to either recompile console with the
appropriate name of your conserver host or add an alias of "console".
In most cases, adding an alias is my suggestion.
7) How do I set up a local serial port for no parity?
The conserver.cf man page will have this in the 6.17 release,
but the answer is to use a 'p' after the baud rate. So, '9600p'
is 9600 baud, no parity.
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# $Id: FAQ,v 1.3 2001-04-04 16:58:49-07 bryan Exp $
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