- yes, the debug port is an ethernet port and it works;
- it is wired as a DCE, so if you want to connect it to a hub, use a cross cable. On the right side of the connector is a carrier LED;
- once connected, it obtains it's IP address through DHCP. It is not a DHCP server itself, luckily!
- it has an extremely simple read-only web server. One page stating firmware version, temperature, state and mac address, one page with very basic logging events. It is all html, not some neat JSON or XML, so to reprocess it, you have to parse out the data yourself.
There seems to be no obvious way to control the box this way, but maybe there are hidden gems. I bet there are!
In my current setup, this is enough. I can meter in the fuse panel, and control (as in: on/off only) through the hardware switch, the blue wire-pair in my previous picture. Still..........