The reason I asked is Digi PortServers use Digi’s proprietary RealPort, which according to the manual:
The RealPort Profile allows you to map a COM or TTY port to the serial port of your Digi device server. The COM/TTY port appears and behaves as a local port to the PC or server. RealPort is also known as COM Port Redirection
This requires Digi provided software to be loaded on to the OS (Windows, Mac, Linux), which obvious can't be done here.
Digging deeper in the manual, I can setup a port using TCP Sockets:
The TCP Sockets Profile allows serial devices to communicate over a TCP network. The TCP Server configuration allows other network devices to initiate a TCP connection to the serial device attached to a serial port of the Digi device server. This is also referred to as Reverse Telnet.
I’m assuming this would be the correct mode to use with the IPSerial plugin.
I’ve confirmed that the Digi PortServer does work with the IPSerial plugin by setting it to TCP Sockets. Just wanted to update this in case anyone else had the same question.
At the moment i do not have (yet) an ip to rs232 adapter but would like to use an pc as test adaptef
I presume that it must be done by hyperterminal but can you give some guidance
Further can i use this two way ie sending command and receiving commands?
@Huib,
If the device under test is transmitting in plaintext, then you can use HyperTerminal (or similar) on your machine to talk to it (with a suitable USB-RS232 Adapter cable). You’ll be able to send commands, and see the responses printed directly to the terminal.
If the device is transmitting in Binary, things will definitely be trickier.
You can sometimes use Ctrl-characters to send a limited set of Binary, but it’s generally not worth it. For these cases it’s often easier to write a plugin and place Vera near the device-under-test so you can test it. Vera will emit Hex versions of the data being sent, and received, which makes it a lot easier to see what’s going on.
Most of the Binary protocols I’ve seen tend to add Checksums (etc) which make it far too awkward to deal with via a standard terminal.
so i must be able to sent it from the vera to the pc by using the terminal
Which ip and port i use
Is it correct to take the ip from the pc and i can take any port ; i see different port setting in different files
Rgds huib
Ok, looks like I’m not clear on what you’re trying to do.
If you want your PC to act as an IP enabled Serial port that bridges Vera and the device-under-control, then you’ll need the PC to run a COM redirector program.
I don’t think that functionality is built into hyper terminal.
@guessed,
I would like to simulate the ip to rs232 adapter
So if the vera will sent an message, i want to see the message on the hyperterminal
Further i want to sent from the hyperterminal the message in to the vera
If the in and output are as required than i can go to the next step in my project
So with the hyperterminal i want to see the datastream sent to the adapter to verify the plugin i am trying to make
So i am looking how to set up the hyperterminal and the settings
If you want Hyperterminal to be the client to Vera you can use two USB-RS232 cables, with an appropriate F-F cross-over device between, and you’ll see everything [printable] that Vera sends over. Similarly, everything you type will be echo’d back to Vera.
All bets are off once the protocol goes Binary though, since you’ll have all sorts of non-printables in there.
From Vera’s standpoint it works the same whether it’s IP or Serial, so that part really doesn’t matter. I don’t think Hyperterminal can be configured to do the required TCP listen to receive connections from Vera, so it’s a little hard to do without intermediate hardware of some form…
You probably could write a little free-standing Lua program to run on the Windows box, and do the TCP Server component, if you wanted to test that component.
Anything more than that, and you might as well buy the real IP-Serial device (they’re under $30 in the US)
Quick question, I have a serial to USB device connected to another machine which is recieving power usage information (http://www.currentcost.com/cc128/xml.htm). Will your plugin allow me to see this information and process it in Vera ?
If you ran COM port redirector (software) on the PC then the COM port would be exposed via TCP on your LAN. Then, using the IP Serial plugin [hack] it could further be exposed to Vera for use in any plugin that can handle its data.
I haven’t worked with that tool, but there’s probably a dozen out there for Linux, you’d just need to find one for your distro/arch combo.
ser2net is the one inside Vera that’s performing the bridging work for IP <-> Serial, then they just use standard USB drivers to get the serPorts recognized.
I’ve attached a screenshot of the manual for a matrix switcher I’m looking at, that Vera might control. Working with you a while back on building a plugin for my Kira Ir transmitter and then another for the SkyHD remote codes .
Do you or are you aware if anything plugin files out there that would allow me to just update the xmls with the binary numbers ready to be when e.g. button 1 is sent?
Netcat is great, but it’s not aimed at configuring serial ports, so you’d have to set baud rate, parity, etc., using some other tool. If you want to move data between stdio, files and TCP/UDP connections, netcat is definitely the right tool for the job.
My goal now is to have everything done via Vera (nothing running on a PC) and maybe I am thinking too simplistically, but it seems to make this Matrix Switcher work over RS232 I need to be able to send a binary message ideally via a IP to RS232 device.
I’ll have a look at the rs232 plugins that exist, but obviously if someone had a set up already and it was just the binary messages that needed to be changed, it could save a lot of time, effort (and potential confusion on my part) ;). Hence I would buy the same Hardware and just modify the values.
I’ve attached a screenshot of the manual for a matrix switcher I’m looking at, that Vera might control. Working with you a while back on building a plugin for my Kira Ir transmitter and then another for the SkyHD remote codes .
Do you or are you aware if anything plugin files out there that would allow me to just update the xmls with the binary numbers ready to be when e.g. button 1 is sent?[/quote]
It was built as a [very] short-term hack (yrs ago), with the intention of MCV “absorbing” the functionality in the UI.
Everyone now knows how to code plugins to connect to both Serial and IP, so it’s no longer needed. The core functional workaround should be implemented in every Plugin (and is, to my knowledge)
If it’s missing from a particular Plugin, then folks should pursue that plugin author to add the work-around, or perhaps MCV to start fixing their aging bug queues.