While the above scenario intended to be a bit of an exaggeration, it is loosely adapted from my real life experience helping customers with the installation and troubleshooting of network devices.

If only there was some helpful tool to remotely access the network device within a comfortable vicinity so I can focus more on getting the device online… After making the correct guess on baud settings, we get access to the device’s CLI but we have to stand with the laptop in one hand while we painstakingly type with the other hand, commands to diagnose the problem. We rummage through our bag to try to find our USB to Serial cable, connect it to the laptop and launch our terminal program so we can guess the correct baud settings to establish connectivity. Our only option at that point in time to try to diagnose the problem is by connecting to the console (serial) port of that device and access it by its command line interface (CLI).

Is it the upstream provider router? Is it the firewall rule change? Who knows?

We immediately go scramble to the datacenter, data closet or whatever that network device lives and immediately start looking for the cause of the problem. There is nothing more terrifying to a network/security engineer than getting a notification that your router/firewall is no longer accessible from the network. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Disclaimer: This is an affiliate link post.

Set up raspberry pi zero