[plug] Linux replacing terminal server

[Craig Ringer]

> Maybe I'm getting too old to clearly explain what a dumb terminal
> really is...  it's a keyboard, display and serial interface with a
> basic, character-display character processor driving the CRT
> display.  No mouse. No "cpu". No firmware to download. Definitely no
> IP, even over serial. I don't know if Wyse 60 means anything to you
> other than a terminal emulation.

Gotcha. We used to have Wyse terminals here, though before I was working 
here (about 8 years...). We're still running an app that was written for 
one and I have a stallion card sitting gathering dust on the shelf 
somewhere, too. Don't know why my brain failed to kick in.

> Connecting a dumb terminal to a terminal server requires the
> terminal server to establish an IP connection to some host that'll
> talk to a character-based widget. In the past, the terminal server
> established a "telnet" connection to a pre-configured host when the
> user press the "any" key. The host sends a login prompt to the
> terminal server which the terminal server dutifully causes to be
> pumped out to the serial port corresponding to the dumb terminal on
> which the key was pressed.

OK, there was the source of confusion - I've only ever heard of wyse 
terminal setups where the terms were connected directly to the machine 
hosting the users' sessions. "classic" terminal server means about zilch 
to me.

Oh well - sorry for wasting your time. The only useful thing I can tell 
you is that I've never heard of any such configuration involving a linux 
box, for what it means.

You may well have better luck whipping up a simple application in 
something like perl or python as the serial<->remote interface rather 
than trying to assemble a house of cards from misc programs and shell 
scripts. It'd be especially easy if the remote host expects raw 
character data from the tty, but shouldn't be too bad even if the remote 
host wants a "real" telnet protocol connection.

Good luck :-)

Craig Ringer