MasterSwitch is a standalone device that lets you cycle power remotely to eight power receptacles via an HTTP or telnet interface. This product may not sound as exciting as a high-speed gigabit switch or a new version of Windows NT, but like a trusty flashlight, you'll appreciate it when you need it most.

I tested the latest version at Network Computing's Northern California corporate lab and found that while it's not a perfect device--it lacks user ID and password encryption, for example--it has a place in any network. I liked it so much, I installed several in our San Mateo, Calif., lab.

Percolating Network This rack-mountable unit comes with eight standard power receptacles, an RJ-45, a 10-Mbps Ethernet interface and a RS-232 serial port, which initially assigns an IP address. BOOTP also can assign an IP address. MasterSwitch does not support DHCP.

On the front of the unit, you'll see eight LEDs (which indicate which power receptacles are on), the Ethernet interface and the serial port. The RJ-45 and RS-232 serial interfaces would be better positioned on the back of the unit for easier cable routing.

I installed the unit in a matter of minutes. The rest of the configuration was performed via the HTTP or telnet interface. The HTTP interface uses standard HTML with server-side CGI scripts. Like the front LEDs, the interface appropriately displayed a green light when a power receptacle turned on and a red light when it turned off. The only requirement for your browser is support for HTML frames.

You can associate each power receptacle with a text name and a URL to help you identify which equipment is connected to which power receptacle. And you can control the duration of powering on individual power receptacles--from 15 seconds to five minutes.

With the HTTP or telnet interface, you can turn on, off or reboot the eight (NEMA 5-15) power receptacles individually or cycle the power on all eight ports simultaneously. This flexibility makes it easy to manage multiple, nonassociated devices attached to MasterSwitch. The rebooting feature is handy because it cycles the power off and on for you. But I missed the ability to create logical groups of devices. It would be helpful to create two or three groups, with each having several associated power receptacles.

One of my biggest complaints about MasterSwitch is its weak security model. It uses HTTP 1.0's standard challenge/response method, but does not offer any user ID or password encryption. The addition of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) would let you access MasterSwitch over the Internet or other public networks.

MasterSwitch supports SNMP and provides a standard MIB that you can import into most network management platforms. To further secure this product, you can change the embedded Web and telnet server's default port number, making it difficult for someone to access the administration interface.

I wasn't particularly thrilled with the MasterSwitch's power limitations. It supports 15 amps-- which is not sufficient for two large servers. As a result, I was forced to carefully watch the particular devices that were attached to the MasterSwitch. This significant limitation prompted me to dedicate a MasterSwitch to a single server in some cases.

Jay Milne can be reached at jmilne@nwc.com.