[ale] Network access to serial devices

[Joe Knapka]

John Mills wrote:

>ALErs -
>
>I want to make some /dev/tts/* devices on a Linux system accessible to
>users on other systems as if they were net services: <myIP>:port<n> so TCP
>traffic exchanged by an outside user with that port is transparently piped
>through to /dev/tts/<n> and vice-versa, one user per port. Security not an 
>issue: I can simply connect the two correspondents by cross-over ethernet 
>cable. (This is a test/configuration fixture for shop use.)
>
>More globally, I have a Win2K application that can only work to COM<n>:  
>ports on its host and I need to connect it to "virtual COM" devices that
>are actually hardware on the Linux system. There are a number of $product$
>to remap the Win2k COM ports to IP:port connections, if I present my Linux
>hardware to the outside world in that way.
>
>If anyone knows of a _free_ tool to handle the Win2k end, that would be
>great, of course: something like RedMon to pipes serial traffic both
>ways.
>  
>
A while ago (years), I wrote a TCP/serial gateway in TCL. It took about 
half an hour
minutes to write and test the code, and worked fine for my purposes (low 
bandwidth,
with perhaps one or two 1K exchanges every minute).  If I can find the 
code I'll
forward it to you.

It's possible netcat would work for this, too,but I'm not sure. If so, 
it's an out-of-the
box, free solution.  <http://netcat.sourceforge.net/>

Cheers,

-- JK