You have plenty of cost effective USB to RS232 Serial cable available in the market, and any OLD PC with USB ports can be used for Console Server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have built this console server for less than \u00a3200 (I used an old Cisco Router with Serial cables, which I feel is an old-fashioned way of working).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hardware :<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- One OLD HP Portable Desk PC (which has 2 USB ports and 1 Ethernet)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 2 Qty 4 Port USB to RS232 Cable <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Software :<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- Ubuntu 24.x LTS <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Ser2net<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- ttyd<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- socat<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- nginx – reverse proxy<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- FastAPI (Python Virtual Environment) run Locally.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Installation :<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- Ubuntu<\/strong>, you can download from the Ubuntu site, install Minimal<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- With Static IP<\/strong> (this IP and the connected Ethernet port – where OOB management network) – that is beneficial when the Core network down, you can reach console access via OOB.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Ser2Net<\/strong> – acts as the proxy between the physical serial port and a network socket. In a modern YAML configuration, we define our endpoints to allow multiple connection.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- ttyd<\/strong> is a command-line tool that shares a terminal over the web.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- socat<\/strong> (Short for “Socket Cat”) is a heavy-duty utility that connects two different data streams together.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The Frontend: Web-Based Terminal Access The “magic” happens when we bring this into the browser. Using a Python-based backend (FastAPI), we can serve a dashboard that manages user sessions and encapsulates terminal traffic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- nginx <\/strong>as a reverse proxy to connect to Local Fast API server to protect the logic behind.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#sudo apt update && sudo apt install python3-pip python3-venv nginx ser2net socat ttyd -y<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Folder for application<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#mkdir terminal-backend<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#cd terminal-backend<\/p>\n\n\n\n
activate python environment<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#python3 -m venv venv<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#pip install fastapi uvicorn[standard] sqlalchemy python-multipart<\/p>\n\n\n\n
create a folder structure<\/p>\n\n\n\n
.
\u251c\u2500\u2500 main.py
|__ index.html
\u251c\u2500\u2500 add_user.py
\u251c\u2500\u2500 update_pass.py
\u251c\u2500\u2500 user.db
\u2514\u2500\u2500 assets\/
\u251c\u2500\u2500 fonts\/
\u2502 \u251c\u2500\u2500 local-fonts.css
\u2502 \u251c\u2500\u2500 inter-v12-latin-regular.woff2
\u2502 \u2514\u2500\u2500 jetbrains-mono-v13-latin-regular.woff2
\u2514\u2500\u2500 icons\/
\u2514\u2500\u2500 bootstrap-icons.css<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nmain.py content in short<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-2.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nser2net.yaml <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
connection: &con01
accepter: tcp,2001
connector: serialdev,\/dev\/serial\/by-path\/pci-0000:00:14.0-usbv2-0:2:1.0-port0,9600n81,local
options:
kickolduser: true
trace-read: \/var\/log\/ser2net\/switch1.log<\/p>\n\n\n\nnginx site-enable – default<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
server {
listen 80 default_server;
server_name _;
return 301 https:\/\/$host$request_uri;
}<\/p>\n\n\n\nserver {
listen 443 ssl default_server;
server_name _;<\/p>\n\n\n\n# Point to your newly generated SSL files\nssl_certificate \/etc\/nginx\/ssl\/nginx.crt;\nssl_certificate_key \/etc\/nginx\/ssl\/nginx.key;\n\n# Standard security protocols\nssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;\nssl_ciphers HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;\n\nlocation \/ {\n proxy_pass http:\/\/127.0.0.1:8000; # Points to FastAPI\n proxy_set_header Host $host;\n proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;\n proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nCONSOLES<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
# ----------------------------\nlocation \/console1 {\n proxy_pass http:\/\/127.0.0.1:3001;\n proxy_buffering off;\n proxy_request_buffering off;\n proxy_http_version 1.1;\n proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;\n proxy_set_header Connection upgrade;\n proxy_set_header Host $host;\n\nI will map each console as service to run port redirection\n\nconsole1.service<\/strong>\n\n[Unit]\nDescription=TTYd Console 1\nAfter=network.target ser2net.service\n\n[Service]\nExecStart=\/usr\/bin\/ttyd -p 3001 -b \/console1 -W \/usr\/bin\/script -q -a -f -c \"\/usr\/bin\/socat -,raw,echo=0 tcp:127.0.0.1:2001\" \/var\/log\/ttyd\/console1.log\nRestart=always\nRestartSec=5\n\n[Install]\nWantedBy=multi-user.target<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsimple HTML index.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n <title>Console View<\/title>\n <style>\n body { margin: 0; background: #000; color: #00e676; font-family: monospace; }\n .header { padding: 10px; background: #1a1d29; border-bottom: 1px solid #2d3142; }\n iframe { width: 100%; height: calc(100vh - 50px); border: none; background: #000; }\n <\/style>\n<\/head>\n<body>\n <div class=\"header\">SYSTEM CONSOLE: CORE-SWITCH-01<\/div>\n <!-- Point the src to your ttyd instance --><\/em>\n <iframe src=\"http:\/\/10.10.10.10:8080\" allow=\"clipboard-read; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/body>\n<\/html><\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWeb Console<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-1-1024x157.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happy Labbinggggggggggggg !<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the world of network engineering, the “out-of-band” (OOB) management link is our last line of defence. When a remote router loses its routing table or a core switch panics, SSH is the first thing to go. Historically, this meant a physical trip to the data centre or comms room with a laptop and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ccie-sec","category-ccie-rns","category-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2935,"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions\/2935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.balajibandi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- With Static IP<\/strong> (this IP and the connected Ethernet port – where OOB management network) – that is beneficial when the Core network down, you can reach console access via OOB.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Ubuntu<\/strong>, you can download from the Ubuntu site, install Minimal<\/li>\n\n\n\n