Know what you are standing on.
A console in your browser for the cable in your bag. It reads the switch, checks every change against what the device actually reported, and writes the as-built as you work. A site you touch today should still be explainable next year.
- Captureread a switch over the console cable: ports, VLANs, neighbours, MACs
- Changeplan it, generate the commands, check them against the device, send them paced
- Recordthe as-built, the transcript, and what you changed, written as you work
Console cable over Web Serial, in Chrome or Edge on a desktop. Not SSH, and not a PuTTY replacement. A different job, done properly.
idf2-sw1#idf2-sw1# configure terminalEnter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.idf2-sw1(config)# interface range GigabitEthernet1/0/9 - 12idf2-sw1(config-if-range)# switchport mode accessidf2-sw1(config-if-range)# switchport access vlan 20! stopped before sending: 2 lines still contain a placeholder! line 7 ip address <MGMT_IP> 255.255.255.0! line 9 ip default-gateway <GATEWAY>nothing was sent. the switch is exactly as you left it.
Nine lines pasted. Two of them still held a template placeholder, so none of them were sent. A terminal would have sent all nine and left you to find the two % Invalid input errors in the scrollback.
They move keystrokes.
This one reads the reply.
Four good terminals already exist and this is not an attempt to be a fifth. A terminal carries characters to a port and back, faithfully, and stops there. It does not know that Gi1/0/1 is a trunk, that the core switch is on the other end of it, or that forty-one of the forty-eight ports have not seen a MAC in weeks.
It cannot know. It never parsed the output. That was your job, by eye, at the end of a long day. Groundplane parses it, keeps it, and checks the next change against it.
idf2-sw1# terminal length 0idf2-sw1# show versionidf2-sw1# show inventoryidf2-sw1# show running-configidf2-sw1# show interfaces statusidf2-sw1# show interfaces trunkidf2-sw1# show vlan briefidf2-sw1# show ip interface briefidf2-sw1# show cdp neighbors detailidf2-sw1# show lldp neighbors detailidf2-sw1# show mac address-tableidf2-sw1# show spanning-tree summaryidf2-sw1# show etherchannel summaryidf2-sw1# show power inline+ 12 of 13 parsed! show power inline not supported on this modelrecorded as unmeasured, not as "no PoE"
Thirteen commands, parsed into ports, VLANs, trunks, neighbours, MACs and PoE. One of them was not supported on this model, so it is recorded as unmeasured, not as an absence. A tool that reports “no PoE” because the command failed is worse than one that reports nothing.
PuTTY
freeThe default, and deservedly. A tiny binary that has worked on every Windows box since 1999, speaks serial as well as SSH, and has never lost a session to an update.
Still better atRuns anywhere, including the jump host you are not allowed to install anything on.
SecureCRT
$119, perpetualThe professional answer. Session manager, tabs, proper logging, and a Python engine that genuinely automates work. Plenty of senior engineers have a decade of scripts in it.
Still better atScripting depth. If you have already written the automation, nothing here replaces it.
Termius
free tier, then subscriptionThe modern one. Hosts synced across laptop and phone, shared team vaults, tidy snippets, and an interface from this decade rather than the last.
Still better atSync and mobile. Groundplane has neither.
MobaXterm
free Home editionThe Swiss army knife. SSH, serial, X11 forwarding, tunnels, SFTP and a local shell in one window. The tool you keep because it has the one protocol nothing else does.
Still better atBreadth of protocol. It will talk to things Groundplane will not.
Four things this does not do.
If any of these matters more to you than reading the device, keep the terminal you have. That is a reasonable answer, and this page would rather you reached it now than after paying.
No SSH.
A browser cannot open a raw TCP socket. Every browser-based SSH client works by relaying through a server that holds the session, so device credentials pass through someone else’s machine. Groundplane will not do that, so it speaks serial only, over the cable in your bag.
Chromium on a desktop, only.
Web Serial exists in Chrome and Edge on a desktop OS. Not Safari, not Firefox, not iPad. If your laptop is locked to Firefox, this does not run.
No scripting engine.
There are presets, generated command sets and a change builder. There is no Python runtime. A SecureCRT script that already works is better than anything here.
A subscription, against a one-time purchase.
$15 a month is more than PuTTY, which is free, and over two years more than a SecureCRT licence. It is worth it only if the reading and the record are worth it.
Know what you are standing on.
Groundplane turns infrastructure reality into a reference you can explain.