Is it possible to make the RJ-45 port on a standard NIC operate as console port/serial port, similar to how the RJ-45 ports on Cisco 2511-RJ or Opengear console servers operate (as serial ports)? I'm highly doubtful, since you'd basically have to reprogram the NIC to operate as a serial device that transmits/sends signals differently, has different logic/operation, and uses the pins differently...but I'm curious if any of you know of any hardware/firmware/device driver hacks that have enabled this.
If think that if this were possible, I'm sure I would have stumbled across an article or two while Googling...or maybe there wouldn't be companies that dedicate their development to console servers...
I'd rather not buy a console server at the moment, so I'm looking for a creative way to put the many NICs that I have to use. I'd also prefer not to get serial port PCI cards, since that would use a PCI slot on my old machine.
Thanks
