Here are some notes for those of us working with Macs, who also have to deal with networking gear that usually have a serial console for local control. I recently purchased a IOGEAR USB 1.1 to Serial Converter Cable that uses the PL2303 chipset (pretty much any brand of these usb to serial converters use this chip). I was hoping that this dongle would allow me to access our network switches serial interface (which you kinda need when the switch has gone berserk). So after looking around the net I found that there is a opensource driver out there for it and that it performs better than the driver provided by Prolific (the company that manufactures the chip). So once everything was installed I hooked up the serial cable and realized that I needed a serial console program.This turned out to be quite a pain since almost all of these programs for the mac are old and/or not free. Well, that was until I found out that our good friend screen can do this just fine:
screen /dev/tty.PL2303-0000101D 9600where /dev/tty.PL2303-0000101D is the device for the dongle (easy to find....just do a ls -l /dev/tty.* and pick the one with PL2303 in the name). The baudrate is 9600 in case you haven't guessed it already.
This will open up a new screen session in your xterm/terminal and from there you can control your serial device. Once you're done you need to issue the command Ctrl-a Ctrl-\ to get out of screen and back to your shell prompt.
15 comments:
ahh prolfic..just terrific, not! Their drivers truely suck! have to reboot the system if you run the coms at greater 56Kbps or I get kernel panics often as their driver locks up the kernel! Even the opensource one isn't really hot either.
Having gone through my fair share of usb-serial adapters, the best ones to buy are either:
o) from Keyspan (really good!)
o) or those companies which uses FTDI chipset.
For which, one of the JTAG units i have uses the FTDI D2XX driver. And FTDI actively supports Mac OS X. As well, the FTDI chip actually has real modem control lines which is useful for high speed communications and what not.
Now the problem is which one uses the FTDI chip??
Hah! Good luck finding out until you buy one.
Good things I have Fry's Electronics around here and doing returns means just using the car gas.
So, here's a FTDI one:
http://www.amazon.com/Converter-Dongle-Serial-Compat-RS232/dp/B0006LSIOI
here's FTDI's website:
http://www.ftdichip.com
Have fun! And don't use Prolific!
Oh, ya, one other thing:
If you want a half-decent though 3/4 baked terminal emulator, give goSerial a try:
http://www.furrysoft.de/?page=goserial
The fellow hasn't finished it, but for all intensive purposes, it works as good command line serial terminal. Just don't try to use it with ansi or vt100 terminal emulation; that's not done.
And one thing about goSerial, the source code is available. One day I may pick it up and add the missing terminal emulation stuff (the simple stuff, not the hard ones... :) )
I have a BASIC Stamp module, and a MacBook.
I borrowed a similar adaptor from a friend (I will buy one soon) and found the open driver on the and that works fine. But that software doesn't support sending strings to the device. But screen works. Now I want to find a way to do what screen does right from the command-line (using applescript), but that's probably simple. The driver has worked fine for me...
you can see what I'm doing with the BASIC Stamp on my website under the "projects" tab.
Awesome tip - Thanks. :)
Great Advise! Much Thanks!
Fantastik! I can't believe how long I have yearned for a mac-serial solution. Thanks a bunch.
the driver from Prolific wouldn't even work for me. I'm happy there is the open source version. :)
Keyspan has had solutions for this (USB to serial) out for years for Mac folks. I've used them in my serial terminal projects.
Apple //c:
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000113.php
eMate 300:
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000121.php
Epson PX-8:
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000143.php
TRS-80 Model 4:
http://www.bytecellar.com/archives/000148.php
...works great every time!
Thanks for that post. It saved us a bunch of time at work today.
I have ArkMicro USB to Serial, you can tell me if exists the driver for Mac OS X?
Hi Kuarzo,
Please read the post and use the links there to the prolific driver or the opensource driver. They might wrok with your particular dongle. I've never heard of the one you have, but they pretty much all use the same chips, so it might work. Good luck.
TTYL
Many
Hey! Thanks for the post, I was faced with a switch which had to have an IP address assigned via the console connection, I have a Mac...
Your post got me up and running in no time.
Hi Findlay,
Glad you found it useful.....
Good luck.
TTYL
Many
how can i uninstall the pl2303 driver?
Hey Martin,
If you're talking about the Opensource driver, these instructions are printed right on the screen during the installation process......I just copied this off the driver install screen:
"Welcome to the OS X PL2303 USB to Serial driver Installation Program. You will be guided through the steps necessary to install this software.
Imported Uninstall information:
PackageMaker does not support uninstall! Removing the driver can be done by executing the following steps:
-open a terminal
-type: kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/osx-pl2303.kext/
-The command prompt ask for you administrator password
-type: sudo rm -r /System/Library/Extensions/osx-pl2303.kext/
-The command prompt ask for you administrator password
-type: sudo rm -r /Library/Receipts/osx-pl2303.pkg/
The driver should be uninstalled."
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