Regarding Console and management connectivity basics

Question

When we talk of console connection, i understand the following:

Someone has a physical access to the device(say, a router)and has inserted a cable into the console port of the router/switch.The other end of this cable goes into the client(say my laptop) hosting some application like putty.

Q1: Is the above understanding correct ?

Q2: But quite a few times, i hear that devices which are thousands of miles away can also be accessed by console.Is this actually possible? How ?

Q3:Using this console access, they bring the management connectivity up. Henceforth, the device can be accessed using an ip address. Please explain how this is achieved.

Q4:What we did in step 3(Q3 actually), is it called OOB(out of band access)?

Answer 1

Q1: yes

Q2: for that telnet (obsolete) and SSH can be used in addition to various proprietary protocols, even a COM server connecting to the serial console

Q3: telnet is the easiest with (basically) connecting through a TCP socket instead of a serial line - because it's so simple (first defined in 1969's RFC 15), there's no inherent security against password interception, man-in-the-middle attacks or replay attacks

Q4: out-of-band access is everything that's not in-band (ie. using the same interface as the data transmissions) - this can be a serial port or a dedicated network port that's not used for data