Terminal server

Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication.

In fact, these later terminal server products also included much larger flash memory and full support for the Telnet part of the TCP/IP protocol suite.

Marketing a product as a console server is very application specific because it really refers to what the user wants to do—remotely control, monitor, diagnose and troubleshoot equipment over a network or the Internet.

Some users have created their own console servers using off-the-shelf commodity computer hardware, usually with multiport serial cards typically running a slimmed-down Unix-like operating system such as Linux.

Such "home-grown" console servers can be less expensive, especially if built from components that have been retired in upgrades and allow greater flexibility by putting full control of the software driving the device in the hands of the administrator.