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Serial over IP (SOI) technology gives a way to share serial (RS232, RS422, RS485) port data over the IP network among multiple networked computers or devices. This allows users of some managed systems like blade servers to access the systems’ programs via a COM port.
A wide range of specialized devices, including various medical and lab instruments, POS hardware and industrial machines, rely on RS232 interfaces to connect to computers. The manufacturers of modern computers and laptops, however, tend to replace serial ports with USB ports. As a result, users of serial-based equipment face a real challenge trying to connect their valuable devices to a PC.
At the same time, thanks to its flexibility and simplicity of implementation, the RS232 communication protocol is expected to be still used in many spheres of our lives for the foreseeable future. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many modern devices such as barcode scanners, POS terminals, surveillance cameras, GPS devices, etc. connect to computers via serial ports.
It’s also possible that the RS232 standard will remain one of the most common ways to provide communications between PCs and their peripherals. New-generation devices that fit a USB port instead of a serial interface still have a driver that allows them to emulate RS232 port for connections to serial apps.
You may find yourself faced with the need to access a serial-based peripheral device that is not located anywhere near your computer. If you are struggling to find a solution to this problem, let us suggest making use of serial over IP technology to connect to the remote equipment.
A serial over IP adapter converts data transmission from COM to IP format. It can be in the form of serial over IP hardware or software solutions. In either case, translation occurs on data sent through a COM port to TCP/IP format. This allows it to be transferred over an IP-based network like the Internet.
This TCP/IP converter software can be used for a variety of purposes, including:
There are no distance limitations when using Serial over Ethernet Connector (SEC), making the location of the connected device irrelevant. Simply install the application on the machine with a physical connection to the device and the computers which require access to it. That’s all that is needed to establish communication with the remote device.
Following are instructions that will guide you in sharing a serial port device over the network with Serial to Ethernet Connector. Let’s define some terms first. When we refer to a “server” we mean the computer to which the serial device is physically connected. “Clients” are the machines that will obtain connectivity to the device via the IP network.
Just follow these easy steps:
That’s it! Now, any device connected to the server’s COM ports will be available to clients anywhere in the network. The serial over IP Windows solution displays the equipment in Device Manager as if it were physically connected to your machine.
Serial to TCP/IP Connector offers a cross-platform solution that lets you share devices between servers and clients running different operating systems. It provides a user-friendly method of sharing any real or virtual serial ports over an IP network. Some alternative solutions are:
Windows users have some other ways to redirect serial traffic over IP networks. Serial-TCP/IP is a good choice for serial software and hardware developers. It enables you to enact communication with remote serial ports over a TCP/IP network for the purposes of testing and debugging. Some of its features include options to ping devices, display the state of COM ports, and log data.
Most modern Linux distros have native methods with which you can enable communication with remote serial interfaces.
To establish serial over IP on Linux machines, you can use the netcat
procedure. You will need to run a new instance of it for each connection you want to create. You can also build a persistent connection by using the xinetd
service with the following configuration.
{ port = 5900
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/bin/netcat
server_args = "-l 5900 < /dev/ttyS0" }
The /dev/ttyS0
parameter needs to be changed to the name of the serial device which will be connected. Use the stty
or setserial commands to configure serial port parameters such as parity and baud rate.