Starting the command-line interface

Access the management-module command-line interface from a client system by establishing a Telnet connection to the IP address of the management module or by establishing a Secure Shell (SSH) connection.

You can establish up to 20 separate Telnet or SSH sessions to the BladeCenter® management module, giving you the ability to have 20 command-line interface sessions active at the same time.

Although a remote network administrator can access the management-module command-line interface through Telnet, this method does not provide a secure connection. As a secure alternative to using Telnet to access the command-line interface, use a serial or SSH connection. SSH ensures that all data that is sent over the network is encrypted and secure.

The following SSH clients are available. Although some SSH clients have been tested, support or nonsupport of any particular SSH client is not implied.

The following table shows the types of encryption algorithms that are supported, depending on the client software version that is being used.

Algorithm

SSH version 1.5 clients

SSH version 2.0 clients
Public key exchange SSH 1-key exchange algorithm Diffie-Hellman-group 1-sha-1
Host key type RSA - 1024-bit

DSA - 1024-bit

Bulk cipher algorithms 3-des 3-des-cbc or blowfish-cbc
MAC algorithms 32-bit crc Hmac-sha1

The following topics describe how to connect your system to the management module to perform initial configuration of the BladeCenter unit. The management module has the following default settings:

The system that you are connecting to the management module must be configured to operate on the same subnet as the BladeCenter management module. If the IP address of the management module is outside of your local domain, you must change the Internet protocol properties on the system that you are connecting.