USB Ports, SG-4860 - USB COM Adapter to Switch - Good Idea or Bad?
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Good Morning All,
Had a situation last year, where our Cisco switches lost their configuration (during an office move) & brought our network down. It was somewhat challenging to bring the network back up as our IT Administrator is remotely located across the country.
That being said, the pfSense SG-4860 maintained it's connectivity, VPN Tunnels, etc. Having recently upgraded our server infrastructure, we are working through disaster recovery plans, specifically, the fastest way to bring the switches back up if this happens again.
I've noticed on the pfSense SG-4860, that there are 2x USB ports. We currently have a Micro Connectors E07-162 USB 2.0 Dual Serial Adapter, chipset MCS7820, plugged in via USB to the Hyper-V Host.
I'm wondering if the pfSense firewall would be able to pick up & utilize the USB to Serial Adapter, & if it would be a good idea or a bad idea to plug the switches directly into the firewall? Is there a pfSense utility like putty that would still have access to them? We have other options if this is a bad idea, I just don't have the depth to evaluate this question.
Greatly appreciate your guidance.
Best-
Darren
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I've used screen on MacOS, there should be a port of screen for FreeBSD as MacOS is BSD based.
https://supportforums.cisco.com/t5/getting-started-with-lans/how-to-use-a-mac-for-connecting-through-the-console-port/td-p/239288
Otherwise you might be better off hanging a RS232 terminal server off an unused LAN port on your SG-4860.
The tip command exists on pfSense.
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Connecting_to_the_Serial_Console#Screen
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Yes, that could work, and a serial-to-ethernet adapter as suggested would also work.
