Is there a way to connect to a serial terminal just as you would do with SSH? There must be a simpler way than tools such as Minicom, like this.

And echo out to the port is just the same but the other way around, to the port. I find screen the most useful program for serial communication since I use it for other things anyway.

It also allows you to pipe anything into the session by entering command mode and doing exec!! The main reason why you need any program like minicom to communicate over a serial port is that the port needs to be set up prior to initiating a connection.

If it weren't set up appropriately, the cat and echo commands would not do for you what you might have expected. Notice that once you run a program like minicom , the port is left with the settings that minicom used.

Putty, the Command Line and NO clicky clicky - EtherealMind

You can query the communication settings using stty program like this:. If you have done it right; after booting the computer and before running any other program like minicom, the communication settings will be at their default settings. These are probably different then what you will need to make your connection. In this situation, sending the commands cat or echo to the port will either produce garbage or not work at all. Run stty again after using minicom and you'll notice the settings are set to what the program was using.

Basically, what needs to be done in order to have two-way communication through a serial port, is: The most basic program that I know that does this is picocom.

You can also use a tool like setserial to set up the port and then interact with it directly from the shell.

I found a way using a shell script here that put cat as a background process and a while loop that read the user input and echo it out to the port. I modified it to be more general and it fitted my purpose perfectly. Putty works well on Linux and offers some convenience, especially for serial communications.

It has one drawback I haven't been able to directly solve: The windows version has a lovely auto-copy to clipboard on highlight, right-click to paste behaviour and there are excellent plugins for both chrome and firefox to enable the same behavior , but on Linux, no copy love AFAIK.

If the lack of copy is a problem it is for me then turn on logging in putty and open a standard terminal window and tail -f putty. As mentioned before you can try picocom. The latest release 2. It depends on what you want to do.

Do you want to run a shell or applicaiton interactively from the terminal, connect out to another computer over the serial line, automate communication with a device over a serial port?

If you want bidirectional communication then I presume you want something interactive with a human on the terminal. You can configure the system to allow logins from a terminal over a serial port by seting up a getty 1 session on the serial port - getty is the tool for setting up a terminal and allowing logins onto it.

Put an entry in your inittab 5 file to run it on the appropriate serial port on a respawn basis. If you want to connect to a device and initiate automated two way conversations then you could see if expect will get you what you want. Use stty 1 to configure the port to the right parity, baud rate and other relevant settings. If you want to communicate interactively with another computer over the serial port then you will need terminal emulation software. This does quite a lot - it sets up the port, interprets ANSI or other terminal command sequences ANSI was far from being the only standard supported by serial terminals.

command line - How to connect to a serial port as simple as using SSH? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

Many terminal emulators also support file transfer protocols such as kermit or zmodem. You need to know which kind of line feed is using your receiver system since this will determine how you'll need to send the commands in my case I needed a Windows like LF, means that I need to send. By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service. Sign up or log in to customize your list.

Stack Exchange Inbox Reputation and Badges. Questions Tags Users Badges Unanswered. Join them; it only takes a minute: Here's how it works: Anybody can ask a question Anybody can answer The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. How to connect to a serial port as simple as using SSH? Unfortunately no one seem to fully fit my purpose when working with embedded systems with a limited set of commmands. I did however find another way using a shell scrip which I add as one of the answers to my question.

Background The main reason why you need any program like minicom to communicate over a serial port is that the port needs to be set up prior to initiating a connection.

You can query the communication settings using stty program like this: Minimal serial communication Basically, what needs to be done in order to have two-way communication through a serial port, is: Thompson Dawes 7 4.

I've found picocom to be much easier to use than minicom. For reasons I haven't figured out, minicom will sometime simply not send or receive data on a port that worked moments before or that picocom has no trouble with. It's probably some arcane configuration option, but whatever it is I can't figure it out and this behavior has happened on more than one machine. The background process is killed, but not for the reasons one might expect. Thus, the last line becomes kill 0 which in turn seems to kill the current shell and all its children it behaves differently in interactive shells I believe.

For all the details see the following explanation: Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if you just added my whole script to your post. I tried to do that, but the edit was rejected. If UUCP is installed on the system, you may use the command cu , e.

Fritz 2 BTW, the putty package which does run on Linux does include serial support. I find that Putty under Linux doesn't paste "the clipboard" what you copy with control-C , but it will insert "the primary selection" what you have currently selected in some program with middle-mouse.

Likewise you can select characters in Putty's screen to define the primary selection. But if I want text from a Putty screen to transfer to some VM, I need it to be the clipboard, so I have to use an intermediary program to receive the text from the main selection and then copy it to the clipboard.

Nick Patavalis 21 1. ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells 1, 9 8.

You might want to take a look at http: Peter 71 1 1. You need to be sure to have the correct read write permits on the device, you could see it with: For the development systems I've used by now, they used to need: None parity and One stop bit Those values are the default ones in the script.

So in order to connect, you can use it as simple as follows: Rafael Karosuo 1 1. Sign up or log in StackExchange. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. This site is not affiliated with Linus Torvalds or The Open Group in any way. Nice script, but there's a bug. MathOverflow Mathematics Cross Validated stats Theoretical Computer Science Physics Chemistry Biology Computer Science Philosophy more 3.

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