Chapter 2. Hardware Setup

Cascading

The KM0832 supports cascading up to 3 levels of KM0832 and 1 level of KVM switches other than the KM0832 (see Supported KVM Switches, page 135). However, no matter how many levels of KM0832 are cascaded, you can only cascade 1 level of other KVM switches. After cascading a KVM switch other than the KM0832, you cannot cascade any more slave KVM switches from the non-KM0832 switch.

Compatible KVM switches allow all of the separate switch OSDs to be integrated so that when the first level KM0832 consoles bring up the OSD, the port directory lists all of the computers connected to all of the cascaded switches.

In cascaded installations, the number of bus connections between a master and slave KVM switch determines the number of users that can simultaneously access the KVM ports of a slave KVM switch. A bus connection is established by connecting a KVM port on the master KVM switch to a user port on the slave KVM switch. The KM0832 supports a maximum of eight bus connections for each cascaded KM0832, and usually no more than one for other KVM switches.

In order for all eight KVM consoles on the first-level KM0832 to be able to access the KVM ports of a cascaded KM0832 at the same time, you must create eight bus connections between the first-level KVM switch and the slave KVM switch. If the two KVM switches are not directly connected, the intermediary KVM switch(es) must have eight bus connections to the master and slave KVM switches.

KVM consoles connected to the user ports of a cascaded KVM switch can access KVM ports on the same level, or those of cascaded slave switches, but cannot access KVM ports of master switch(es).

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