Connecting to Your Dell Force10 S4810P via the Serial Console Port

What You’ll Need:

• A console cable
• A computer with a serial port (or a USB to serial adapter)
• Terminal application (like PuTTY for Windows or Terminal for macOS)

Steps:

1. Locate the console port on your Dell Force10 S4810P switch: The console port is usually labelled as such and is a RJ-45 port on the front of the switch.
2. Connect the console cable to the switch: Plug one end of your console cable into the console port on the switch.
3. Connect the console cable to your computer: Plug the other end of the console cable into the serial port on your computer. If your computer does not have a serial port, use a USB to serial adapter.
4. Launch your terminal application: Open PuTTY if you’re using Windows, or the Terminal app if you’re on macOS.
5. Configure your terminal application:
   • For PuTTY, open the program and select ‘Serial’ from the options on the left. Set the ‘Speed’ to 9600 and the ‘Serial line’ to the COM port your cable is connected to (you can find this in the device manager under ‘Ports’). Click ‘Open’ to start the session.
   • For Terminal, type screen /dev/<serial interface> 9600, replacing <serial interface> with the path to your serial device (usually something like tty.usbserial or tty.serialport). Press Enter to start the session.
6. Log in to your switch: Press Enter to see the login prompt. Input your admin credentials to log in to the switch.

And there you have it! You’re now connected to your Dell Force10 S4810P switch via the serial console port. This connection method is handy for initial configuration and troubleshooting if network access to the switch is unavailable.

In the next tutorial, we’ll discuss how to connect to the Dell Force10 S4810P via SSH.