Log into serial port remotely

baddah · 02-05-2008, 07:54 AM

Hi,

I'm trying to connect to a serial device on a remote linux server. So the serial device is connected to a remote box's serial port. I am ssh 'ing into that server, and now i want to connect to the device on the serial port. (like using cutecom,only now i only have text mode).

How can i connect to this device in runlevel 3.(Text mode.)

Any program i can install that will enable this?

Thanks

Lepakko · 02-05-2008, 08:19 AM

You can use a program called minicom to communicate with a serial device in text mode. Or, if you're running the X server on the computer you're ssh'ing with, you can tunnel X and start cutecom remotely. For this, you need to start ssh with the -X parameter and tunneling X has to be enabled on the SSH settings on the server side. If you only need to send a few bytes to the serial device, you can do this with e.g.

echo -e "message\n" >/dev/ttyS0

and read the serial buffer with

cat /dev/ttyS0

baddah · 02-06-2008, 07:36 AM

Hi,

I'm trying to connect using minicom to an IP DSLAM that's connected to the pc's serial port.I've got all the settings as i should.I should expect minicom to connect to it right away,am i right?(by running minicom and using the correct settings). I would expect a login prompt, but minicom gives me nothing. I do notice a Offline at the bottom.

My question now,is there any command i can run in linux to check if the device is actually connected on the serial port, and to which one.(/dev/ttyS0,/dev/ttyS1,etc).

Thanks

Lepakko · 02-06-2008, 10:07 AM

To figure out which device file the device is using you have to try them out one by one. You can setup minicom with the -s switch (as root) or change the configuration within the program to try out different serial ports. Minicom should connect to your device automatically, but I think it's optimized for use with standard modems that use AT commands, so you may first have to type in some initialization commands yourself.