System information

1 Introduction
Figure 1.2: The HLT cluster nodes.
1.4 Remote Management Tools
Remote management tools are used to remotely connect and manage a single or multiple
computers. There are a couple of software and hardware based remote management and
remote control tools on the market. Remote control software are widespread to any op-
erating systems. SSH [21] and Telnet [22] are two of the best known remote access tools.
They provide console-based access to a remote computer, whereas graphical access can be
obtained with the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) [23] from Microsoft or the Remote
Framebuffer (RFB) protocol [24] maintained by RealVNC Ltd for example. Therefore, it is
not necessary to work in front of a server computer or a computing node in a cluster system.
However, if the operating system has failed, the software based remote access tools fail, too.
Furthermore, as a general rule the BIOS of a PC does not provide remote control software.
Hardware based remote maintenance closes the gap between the remote control software.
The following section describes common remote control techniques and components usually
used in cluster administration.
1.4.1 KVM
The most simple way to provide remote control of a computer system is the use of a KVM
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over IP
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devices. It replaces the local monitor and the local keyboard. The KVM device
has to be connected to the graphic card and to a serial port. The built-in Ethernet interface
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Keyboard/Video/Mouse, a hardware device that allows a user to control multiple computers from a single
keyboard, video monitor and mouse.
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Internet Protocol [25].
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