Serial Communications Question...

[Henry Stock]

Does anyone know if there is a way to reroute serial communications?

I have a server with only one serial port. There is not enough room to add
a serial communcations card to add additional com ports internally, but I
would like to connect this server to the console ports of our router and
switches so I can control all these devices from one server.

The server does have available USB ports I was wondering if there is any
hardware / software combination that would allow me to re-route serial
communications via USB to some sort of serial hub. I do not want to enable
telnet on the switches and router for security reasons.

Any ideas on this would be aprreciated.

 

[NetEng]

Purchase a router for reverse telnet (or something like a used Cisco
CS-500), or grab an old server and build one using linux.

 

[DS]

Does anyone know if there is a way to reroute serial communications?

I have a server with only one serial port. There is not enough room
to add a serial communcations card to add additional com ports
internally, but I would like to connect this server to the console
ports of our router and switches so I can control all these devices
from one server.

The server does have available USB ports I was wondering if there is
any hardware / software combination that would allow me to re-route
serial communications via USB to some sort of serial hub. I do not
want to enable telnet on the switches and router for security reasons.

Any ideas on this would be aprreciated.

Yes they sell USB -> RS-232 converters. Belkin has one that I used in the
field when the company I worked for decided to buy laptop's w/o serial
ports because they were cheaper than one with, yet the equipment we needed
to use was rs-232....go figure.

DS

 

[Thomas Lutz]

There are several methods for adding serial ports to a PC or a network
without having to open your PC case.
There are dozens of USB - RS232 add on serial adapters available at
any computer supply shop for about $20.00
They are basically just a small cable with a USB connector on one side
and a RS232 serial port on the other. They all come with a driver that
must be installed in Windows so that the OS will know how to
communicate with them.
A very good one is available from www.cyberguys.com for $20.
You can also purchase multi port add-on serial adapters that connect
to a USB port as well. My company sells a few models from Digi
International. For more information please visit:
http://www.taltech.com/products/rs232.html

The only issue with the USB based add-on adapters is that only the PC
where the adapter is installed can communicate with the port unless
you use a software tool that will allow you to share the serial ports
on a PC across your network. My company also sells a software product
called TCP-Com that is designed to allow you to share serial ports on
a PC with other PCs on a network. For more information about TCP-Com
or to download a demo, visit:
http://www.taltech.com/products/tcpcom.html

Another approach that you could take would be to purchase a "Serial
Device Server". A serial device server is basically a small black box
with a network connector on one side and a RS232 serial port on the
other. You connect the serial device server to your network and then
install a driver that comes with the serial device server on your PC
that will cause the serial port on the serial device to work just like
a built in serial port on the back of your PC. The cool thing about
serial device servers is that any PC in the network can communicate
with the serial port on the serial device server. All you need to do
is install the driver on each PC.
Most serial device servers come with the driver software however some
do not. For those that do not, you can also use our TCP-Com software
mentioned above to do the same job as the driver.
The following is a list of companies that sell serial device servers.

Digi International (Digi One Realport serial device server)
http://www.digiboard.com/products/externaldeviceservers/
Tibbo www.tibbo.com
Precidia www.precidia.com
Lantronix www.lantronix.com
Atop Technologies www.atoptechnologies.com

Search the web for "serial device server" or "Terminal Server" and you
will find more.