What is a SpiderPort

A terminal server made by a company called SPider, available as 10 port or 18 port servers, used by fip as an easy way to get several manageable serial connections accessible on a network.

See also SpiderAtom? Spider were later bought by Shiva, and the product became the Shiva Atom series .

These have been discontinued, however there are several other teminal servers available from companies like Cisco and BlackBox? .

Configuring a SpiderPort

SpiderPort installation This is how to install a new SpiderPort. The synatx or procedure will differ for other types of terminal servers but the theory is the same: you need to give it a name and Internet number and you want to configure each port to slave with the correct speed, data bits and flow control (if appropiate).

Using an async terminal (such as a vt100):

• Set it to 9600bps, no echo, 8 bits, no parity.
• Plug into any port with any straight thru cable - the spider just needs pins 1, 2, 3 and 7.
• Hit DEL several times to wake the port up.

It should reply :

      Port:

Get into the admin port:

       Port: ADMIN
        Password: HELLO (lowercase only pls)

Change the name of the box using CHNAME, Change to: SPIDERx (lowercase pls, where x is a number):

       Admin: chname spider1

Change or check the address using ADDRESS. Remember to add it to your /etc/hosts or yellow pages of the other machines on the network.

If necessary, change the password, using PASSWORD. Default is 'hello'. w If you do change the password, do remember to log the new name carefully !

Delete any Hosts Unless you need them for other purposes, using the DELHOST command. (ADDHOST puts them back).

Power off/on or use the KILL command to activate the changes.

You can now continue with changing the port parameters either via the terminal OR from a Unixbox using telnet :

To access the admin port from a terminal session use:

• telnet spiderx 2048
• where x is the number of the spider.