*nix terminal client

[Daz]

Random question for the nix geeks - what do you use to make a terminal/serial connection, to a router or some such device, from a shell?

I was down working in a lab last week with some routers, and stuck the laptop into buntu so I could fiddle with some fiddly things easier. I soon wanted a console connection to a router and realised the occasion had never presented itself before and I wasnt sure what tool to use :o

I ended up wine'ing Putty which I had on a USB stick. Worked like a charm but I dont want to come out of a shell in future!

[Mark]

Not used serial terminals in, like, forever, and we had a few dumb Wyse terminals around the place which helped.

However, a bit of Googling turned up GTKterm (GTK+ Hyperterminal 'clone'), and minicom (shell-based utility).

Dunno if they're any good but they're both in the repository and minicom will keep you in your shell. :)

[leowyatt]

Not sure if this is what you mean but we use ponderosa at work.

[Chuckles]

Can't you just telnet/ssh to com1?

[Mark]

No - serial and IP may as well be apples and oranges. You can of course send IP data over a serial line using a transport (PPP or SLIP), but that's no use when 'talking' to hardware like routers.

Unfortunately Ponderosa is a .NET app, so as far as *nix is concerned I'm afraid that won't be any better than using Putty.

[Daz]

They'd both require some sort of daemon on the other end listening on a socket - a serial connection is just bits in and bits out, no software to speak of.

Leo - If you mean poderosa, I use that too a lot - In Windows :) I did try it it wine but it complained, which I expected, no dotnet stuff for it.

Mark - GTKTerm is good, not exactly what I wanted (ideally I just fire it from bash with some parameters and away I go), but that's going in for sure. Minicom from a quick look seems a bit overkill perhaps, and more modem centric, but I'll have a look, ta :)

[Mark]

picocom then? (also in the repository)

[Daz]

That looks just the baby, thanks :)

[Garp]

minicom all the way, use it routinely for consoling Sun boxes over serial cables :)

[Daz]

I'll grab that as well, ta :)

[Garp]

I'll grab that as well, ta :)

It doesn't work so well with screen, unfortunately, at least not in its default state; but that's a minor problem.

[Daz]

That's not come up yet but I'll keep it in mind :)

[Garp]

That's not come up yet but I'll keep it in mind :)

If you want to use it with screen, you'll need to change screen's default control keys as minicom uses ctrl+a and as far as I can see you can't change that :D

[Daz]

Heh, it's not worth it, I'll use picocom :D