conserver is a centralized serial server that keeps a persistent serial session open and allows multiple users to access the same console at a time. See http://www.conserver.com/

The service is running on a VM in RHEV on conserver.front.sepia.ceph.com. It is configured to allow passwordless access to any IP on the 172.21.0.0/20 network. (This includes VPN clients since they are routed through gw.front.sepia.ceph.com)

Fedora and Ubuntu have pre-built packages available. yum/apt-get install conserver-client

CentOS and RHEL users will need to install the epel repo. Then, yum install conserver-client --enablerepo=epel

MacOS users can use http://brew.sh/ to install via: brew install conserver

After installing the client package, copy and paste the following into a terminal on your workstation.

cat <<EOF  > ~/.consolerc
config * {
   master conserver.front.sepia.ceph.com;
   port 3109;
}
EOF

To access a serial console, run, for example, console smithi001

Conserver clients can control serial sessions using a combination of Ctrl+e c commands.

For Example: To take over write access of a console, enter Ctrl+e, then c, then f. Do not hold Ctrl!

Here's a list of the available commands:

[Enter `^Ec?' for help]
[help]
 .    disconnect                        ;    move to another console
 a    attach read/write                 b    send broadcast message
 c    toggle flow control               d    down a console
 e    change escape sequence            f    force attach read/write
 g    group info                        i    information dump
 L    toggle logging on/off             l?   break sequence list
 l0   send break per config file        l1-9 send specific break sequence
 m    display the message of the day    n    write a note to the logfile
 o    (re)open the tty and log file     p    playback the last 60 lines
 P    set number of playback lines      r    replay the last 20 lines
 R    set number of replay lines        s    spy mode (read only)
 u    show host status                  v    show version info
 w    who is on this console            x    show console baud info
 z    suspend the connection            |    attach local command
 ?    print this message                <cr> ignore/abort command
 ^R   replay the last line              \ooo send character by octal code