RS232 over USB

[wiz561]

Hi!

I have a stock AC66U and my linux (ubuntu) server randomly stops working for no reason what-so-ever. I'm not sure if it's a networking thing or something hardware wise.

In any case, I am interested in configuring Ubuntu with a Serial Console and being able to use the AC66U to call it up. KVM over IP is expensive as heck, and this might just be an alternative solution.

I'm thinking I'd ssh into the AC66U, pull up a terminal program, use a PL-2303 based USB to Serial cable (TrendNet TU-S9), and be able to get to the console of my server. The PL-2303 is suppose to be supported with the pl2303.c driver.

The only question I had (besides if anybody has done this yet) is which terminal package is available on the Merlin firmware? I *think* you can use screen to connect to a serial port, but I know minicom works too. I didn't see an ipkg in the 'entware repo', but there is one for screen. If screen doesn't work, can I compile minicom for the AC66U? Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks!

 

[kfmfe04]

Is your Linux box actually flaky or are you anticipating flakiness?

If you have a lot of machines on your network, two devices with the same static IP can cause flakiness - the other day, while I was reconfiguring my subnet, I forgot that I had a printer with a static IP on my network (forgot to add it to the DNS server). I had ssh flakiness...

If you actually have problems, probably best to figure out what they are - most Linux boxes will go for many, many, many months without rebooting: even ones on old hardware.

 

[wiz561]

Well, everything has been running OK for awhile. My disks are encrypted and for whatever reason, whenever I did a kernel upgrade, it would kill the networking. I think I traced it down because upon reboot, I can ssh into the box and enter the password to decrypt the disks, then boot into linux. Something was going wrong where it wasn't releasing that IP and just being a pain.

I thought I fixed it, but I don't know what the problem is this time. I believe it would be nice to have this functionality so that I can get to the console and figure things out while I'm away....which is the majority of times. These things never break when you're at home.

Anyways, way more info than needed....but hey, we're all nerds.

 

[wiz561]

figured it out

For those that are wondering, I got it working. I have a Trend TU-S9, which is a USB to Serial convert that is based upon the PL2303 chipset. If you plug it into the usb ports, it recognizes it as a 3g modem. Well, that's not exactly what I wanted. So here's how I fixed it...

Downloaded the driver from here...

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43358

scp'ed the 'pl2303.o' driver over to the asus router. ran insmod pl2303. Still no workie. Unplugged and replugged the usb to serial converter in, and bam, it works. For a terminal, I'm using...

$ screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

On the server side, I followed the ubuntuserialconsole instructions on the wiki.

It's a really dirty way I got it working and I have to figure out how to make it a little neater on the file system. At least I know it's working and I'm able to do this. I just have to clean it up now.