airconsole 2

AIRCONSOLE 2
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
- JONAS HAUGE JENSEN @ DKNOG5
WHY LOOKING AT AIRCONSOLE?
-  Primarily Prolific PL2303 chipsets
-  Available in many different versions
-  Difficult to find stable drivers for Windows
-  People tend to hold on to their own personal dongle to avoid
problems J
Working primarily via Windows I became tired of multiple BSOD’s on
the company laptop and looked for an alternative.
Initial experience explained on the next slides as per request from the
community
WHAT IS AIRCONSOLE?
•  An embedded linux device and an
USB->Serial dongle
•  Dongle is an USB HUB with an
FTDI FT232RL chip for the serial
interface
•  Provides serial connection via wifi,
ethernet or bluetooth
•  Runs on an internal battery
•  Serial dongle can be used
independent from Linux device
THE FTDI CHIP…
Is actually available on the danish market.
Screendump from edbpriser.dk:
WHAT IS AIRCONSOLE? – CONT.
•  Wifi via b/g/n (2,4 GHz)
•  Client- and AP-mode simultaneously
•  Bridge or route between wifi and
ethernet
•  DHCP-server, DNS proxy and NAT
•  DHCP without default gateway for
secondary connection
•  Serial console via built in webserver
(javascript)
•  Powerpack for USB-devices
•  Support for other Serial dongles
including native Cisco USB-console
WHAT IS AIRCONSOLE? – CONT.
•  Native bluetooth serial ports
•  Note: No authentication during pairing!
•  Serial console via iOS and Android apps
•  No builtin tftpd/http for images
•  Users has been requesting this multiple
times ;-)
USE CASES
Personally I will use it for:
•  Console in datacenters with flexible placement of laptop
•  Bridge laptop and network device for bootstrapping image to new
devices and provide the serial console simultaneously
INITIAL IMPRESSION?
After two weeks testing the overall impression is;
•  Works and promised and does it out of the box
•  Documentation is of good quality
•  Stable operation
•  Very flexible deployment
…but if you just need an USB->Serial device, then Airconsole is overkill.
8 PORT SERIAL CONSOLE SERVER?