Re: Feuding with IBM over HMC console disconnects -- MIDRANGE-L

Yes, same.

If you use RDP as opposed to TeamViewer or VNC etc it works really well
on touchscreen enabled devices with a Windows 10 host - the official MS
RDP clients correctly forward e.g. touchscreen gestures and offers the
Win10 OSK in the appropriate contexts. I have a machine like this that I
usually admin remotely using an iPad with LTE when things go wrong
on-the-go.

/y

From: "Diego Kesselman" <diegokesselman@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion"
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 17/05/2019 11:21
Subject: Re: Feuding with IBM over HMC console disconnects
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

If you use vHMC I guess you can add a small VM with WinXP/Win7/Win10 and
ACS local to your HMC/vHMC and something like
TeamViewer/LogMeIn/AnyDesk/Remote Destop/VNC to reach your session.
We use this method after we have an issue with OPT21 more than once.
If connection fails, your session remains active.
If you are on the road with your big-screen smartphone, you can see (and
use) your console and do grosseries/take your dog for a walk while running
OPT21 or adding disks to ASP.

El jue., 16 de mayo de 2019 16:31, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
escribió:

We use vHMC and like it a lot. The issue isn't the HMC itself in this

case.

Why do they drop? Because the HMC doesn't have any keepalive between the
PC running ACS and itself. So nothing crosses the wire for a while and
the firewalls drop the NAT translation. This is the most common issue.
This is why we want a console local to the HMC so we can simply
reconnect to that. Within the same subnet there isn't anything in the
middle to wreak havoc with the connection!

Yes between my own office and my data centers I can tell my firewalls
NOT to drop any connection using port 2300 or 2301 and that helps a lot.
But any shenanigans on the internet and the VPN reconnects. Fine for
stateless things but notsomuch for consoles. And my internet comes in
on a 120 ft tall tower with a dish connected to another tower 17 miles
away. While it's darn good it's not infallible. Option "B" for me is
cell internet (less reliable still) and plan "C" is a modem... oops
sorry no land lines left. No "C" for me.

Yes the takeover works IF a) You have a user ID and password for service
tools and b) Your password is not expired. My #1bitch with it is that it
can TELL you your password is expired but it cannot let you change it.

THIS needs to be fixed. If you are stuck in that situation you are

toast.

And believe me next to nobody knows the QSECOFR password for DST at very
small shops it's flatly incredible.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 5/15/2019 10:58 AM, friedkiwi@xxxxxxxx wrote:

A vHMC could be a solution?

We've successfully used those on our existing vSphere environment, and
accessing the console is trivial.

Wrt dropping, do you have any idea why it happens? You could try
reproducing it with e.g. Wireshark running to capture the network

traffic

and see what happens around the time the connection is lost. I've seen
e.g. the Cisco Umbrella enterprise security products interfere with
long-running TCP connections.

/y

From: "Jim Oberholtzer" <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'"
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 15/05/2019 15:26
Subject: RE: Feuding with IBM over HMC console disconnects
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I've been fighting that same problem for quite some time as well.

Maybe

someone will be at POWERUp19 to gang up on? Wait, we run IBM i and

don't

count for the folks in Austin.... Snide comments aside, the correct

thing

to do is to stop the console from dropping in the first place.

As to the V7R4, only someone with pre-release would be able to answer

the

question. Nothing in the MTU or other documentation I've found.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
DrFranken
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 8:54 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion

<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: Feuding with IBM over HMC console disconnects

Opened a PMR with IBM about the way the console works on the HMC.

'Back

in

the day' there was a session on the HMC somewhere in the background

and

if

you got disconnected from the HMC that stayed alive. You could then
reconnect. It was awesome. That went away (I think) with version 7.
(Loooong ago.)

This is of course important for long running tasks like system

restores,

full saves from the consoles, PTFs perhaps, things like that.

The 'work around' is to keep a shared console open 'somewhere else'
preferably 'very close' to the HMC so that disconnects are unlikely.
You could do so at the HMC itself of course but that requires the

ability

to
put the old Mark I eyeball on the HMC. Yes the BMC connection on the

7063

HMC being supported allows this to be done remotely but most customers
don't
configure that and even if they do they don't know the user/password

for

the
thing.

IBM say: "But we gave you console takeover, you're good if you

remember

to

turn that on!"

*I* say: "But if I get that screen and my password is expired I'm

toast."

IBM say: "Correct."

Anyone know if i 7.4 lets you change your password at the takeover

screen?

Any other ideas?

--
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