topic serial connection in Microsoft Virtualization Discussions

serial connection

schweri — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:08:16 GMT

Is there any possibility or plan for the future to connect over the serial port to the filer?

Kind Regards

René

Re: serial connection

fjohn — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:42:06 GMT

All you need is a db9-rj45 cable (the same kind you use for a Cisco switch) and you can connect via serial to the console port. I bought one from Cables & Kits for $9.95.

Re: serial connection

schweri — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:54:43 GMT

Hi J

Thanks for your answer. But my question for the serial connection is regarding the "Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit".

I want to connect over the ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit with a serial connection/cable for exmpl when you do a base install

and you not have a network connection at this time. Should be look same this:

Connect-NaController -serial com1

Re: serial connection

fjohn — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:14:14 GMT

When you have a serial connection to a filer, you have essentially a terminal session to the console. You can use telnet from PowerShell to send commands and then strip and parse the reply. This would work for one off situations where there is no Data ONTAP PowerShell cmdlet, like mucking around with the boot loader. You could of course run any console command from the session.

The Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit wraps ZAPI, which communicates via http/s. The API is not available from the console. It would be a monumental effort to rewite the entire Zepher API to send commands via the terminal then strip and parse the output. It would be, in effect, creating an entirely new API with the same functionality as ZAPI.

Hope this helps