[c-nsp] 3800 USB

[Jared Mauch]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 12:08:36PM +0200, John Kougoulos wrote:
> I think that the USB connectivity is a lot more complicated than the 
> traditional RS-232 + has many limitations on the length of the cables.
> 
> I believe that console access should be as raw as possible.

	I totally agree.  Everyone that wants to do away wit the
'consoles' for usb access is missing the underlying 'driver' mess
that will ensue.  While I can plug in a lot of different usb drives
to my laptop and have it 'just work' (eg: mounting the flash to copy
a new image to the router is fairly easy to do), not every usb
rs232 device will work.  Add in driver matrix where you need to
support all sorts of wacky OSes, and those of us who don't run a
network sitting next to the device (using OOB routers and dial-up
to gain access while we wait for someone to get onsite) then you
need a multi-vendor serial+usb+??? console box instead of a NM-32A
inside your device.

	And no, having some windoze machine with a stack of usb
hubs in the racks doesn't really work either, since you can't dial-in
to it remotely and have it work at a reasonable speed or reliably.

	This is why there is still a need for reliable external
modems connected to POTS lines.  (I know some people are moving
to use DSL instead but there are some challenges with that).

	- jared

> Chris Woodfield wrote:
> > Has anyone opened a feature request case to enable serial console  
> > access via the USB port? The sooner we can kill off RS-232, the  
> > better IMO...
> > 
> > -C
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-- 
Jared Mauch  | pgp key available via finger from jared at puck.nether.net
clue++;      | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/  My statements are only mine.