redhat itself

Thu Aug 11 13:54:38 UTC 2016

Phil:

I want to make sure I understand ...

Are you saying that console level access is explicitly disallowed by
policy? I would presume that's some kind of security decision?

Phil Rigby writes:
> Hi,
> 
> I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux, (RHEL), all the time at work. We manage
> servers running RHEL, a lot of them Dell Poweredge rack mounts or Dell
> blades. When new hardware comes in, I try to get them to set up things so
> that the serial over LAN settings in the BIOS are enabled and, with a couple
> of tweaks to the grub.conf file, I can get the RHEL  console redirected and
> then I ssh to the ILO/IDRAC card where I then have full console access so
> that I can solve boot up issues or access the server when all its network
> interfaces are dead.
> 
> It is very rare these days that I actually do an OS installation as we have
> kickstart files which run OS installs these days so they come up as a
> standard build for a customer.
> 
> In this environment, it doesn't matter a bit really what flavour of Linux is
> used. It isn't Linux that is accessible or not. If you have ssh access to
> the console and then, once the OS is up and running, via any network
> connection, you can do everything whatever the Linux flavour.
> 
> Now this is fine for the good old physical server world. My big problem is
> that so much is going virtual now. We use VMWare for virtualisation and I
> just cannot access the console of a VMWare VM running RHEL because these
> seem only to be accessible through horrible Java GUI's which are only seen
> through vCenter. To get to vCenter across a network, I would need to RDP
> from a terminal server which is impossible. Even if I could do this, I
> couldn't use the Java GUI as that is hopeless with most screen readers I
> know. Before anyone suggests it, there is No such thing as direct access to
> vCenter with a command line interface in the corporate world. I've tried for
> it. You have my employer's corporate network policies, the customer's own
> access policies and everything else blocking this.
> 
> I have asked before on here if anyone has solutions in this area and I only
> met with sympathy as several other people seem to have hit the same problem
> but not yet found a solution.
> 
> I just hope physical servers stay around a bit longer.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Phil.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blinux-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:blinux-list-bounces at redhat.com]
> On Behalf Of John G Heim
> Sent: 10 August 2016 16:48
> To: Linux for blind general discussion
> Subject: Re: redhat itself
> 
> Surely there must be somebody building kernels with those modules so that
> you can  install by adding their yum repository to your system. If not, it
> would mean that a blind RH systems admin couldn't do his work at the
> console. If remote access is broken he'd be in serious trouble. Most systems
> admins don't have a choice as to what flavor of linux they use in their job.
> Here at the University of Wisconsin, the IT department used to run Red Hat.
> The campus had a site license. The Math Department, where I work, uses
> debian and ubuntu. But if I worked in another department, I'd probably be
> stuck with RH.
> 
> 
> I have been building kernels for debian and ubuntu that have a hack do
> serial synths work. I set up a apt repository at www.iavit.org so other
> people can use them too. I don't know anything about Red Hat but surely
> there must be the equivalent of a ppa.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 08/10/2016 09:10 AM, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Well, I've moved from Fedora to Arch on any machine where I need 
> > Speakup. The reason is that rpmfusion has not provided kernel staging 
> > modules since kernel 4.0.4.
> >
> > So, I had the choice of constantly building my own, or switching 
> > distros. I chose the latter.
> >
> > I am still running Fedora on my data center server, but I don't use 
> > Speakup on that machine, of course.
> >
> > Janina
> >
> > Willem van der Walt writes:
> >> Redhat these days is mostly used on servers as one buys support for 
> >> that, but it is accessible.
> >> I ran Redhat years ago, but these days, I think, Janina is still 
> >> running it or Fedora without problems.
> >> HTH, Willem
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, 6 Aug 2016, Mark Peveto wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hmm, I noticed this is hosted on redhat.com.  Does redhat have an
> accessible distro?
> >>>
> >>> Everything happens after coffee!
> >>>
> >>> Mark Peveto
> >>> Registered Linux user number 600552
> >>> Sent from sonar using alpine 2.20.14
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> Blinux-list at redhat.com
> >>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> >>>
> >>>
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> 
> --
> --
> John G. Heim; jheim at math.wisc.edu; sip://jheim@sip.linphone.org
> 
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-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa