Managing appliances via serial console

Overview

The Q4 / Q8 / Q8W / w4 / w8 / e3 / e3w / e6 / e6w / e6wl appliances support management via serial console for troubleshooting purposes.
All ETM appliances use baud rate 115200.
Note: Serial console management is generally not necessary and should only be used if advised by a support technician.

Finding the Right Cable

Q8, Q8W, w8, e3, and e3w

These appliances support serial console access through micro USB. A USB A to micro USB is included with the appliance. 

Q4, w4, e6, e6w, and e6wl

These appliances support serial console access through an RJ45 interface. These appliances include a DB9 to RJ45 console cable. If you do not have a computer with DB9 (9-pin Serial port) you can purchase separately a USB to RJ45 serial cable.

Connecting to serial console from your management device

Windows OS
You can use the Putty utility to manage your ETM appliance via serial console from Windows OS.

1. With the cable connected to your Windows computer and the appliance, open your Device Manager.
2. In the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section, locate the Prolific-USB-to-Serial Comm Port and take note of the port number.
3. Open Putty and create a new connection of type "Serial"
4. Enter the COM port (e.g. COM3) and the speed "115200" and click Open to start the session.

macOS

1. Open the Terminal app and list your /dev directory "ls /dev". If your cable is connected to both your Mac and the appliance, you should see a device starting with "tty.usbserial".
   Note: If you do not see a similar named device try a different cable.
2. Once you confirm the device name, use the built-in "screen" utility with the following command:

   screen /dev/tty.usbserial-210 115200

   
   In the example connection string above, the USB serial device name is tty.usbserial-210. This name may be slightly different depending on your system and cable. 

   

   Accessing the console

   Once you open the serial connection to your appliance, press the return key to access the prompt.
   The default login is "root" and the password is the same as the web administration admin account. If your ETM appliance is not configured, the default password is "passwd".

   After successful login, you can proceed to the menu. The following menu is used in NG Firewall. For Micro Edge, the user is sent directly into a shell environment. 

   

   Menu Option	Function
   Remap Interfaces	Reorder the hardware interfaces.
   Configure Interface	Basic configuration settings for interfaces.
   Ping	Initiate a ping test to a target of your choice.
   Remote Support	Toggles remote support access for this appliance.
   Upgrade	Check for and initiate any available software upgrade.
   Reboot	Restart the hardware appliance.
   Shutdown	Shut down the hardware appliance.
   Reset To Factory Defaults	Restore the software to defaults, undoing any configurational changes that have been made.
   Exit to Shell	Exit this console and return to the command line.

   
   
   

   Launching the console menu from command line (NG Firewall)

   If you have entered the shell environment in NG Firewall and you wish to return to the menu, you can run the following command:

   /usr/share/untangle/bin/ut-textui.py