Serial bridging

Opengear console servers can be configured to interconnect serial devices over a network. Serial tunnelling encapsulates serial data into network packets and transports the data over a network. When configured to work in tandem, a pair console servers effectively acts as a virtual serial cable over IP network - provides a serial bridge interconnecting attached serial devices. 

 

One console server is configured as the server end, with the serial port to be bridged set in Console Server mode, with either RFC2217 or RAW enabled. The client console server at the other end has the serial port set in bridging mode:

• Select Serial Bridging Mode and specify the IP address of the server end console server and the TCP port address of the remote serial port. For RFC2217 bridging this will be 5001-5048 (i.e. 5000 + port # ) and for RAW TCP this will be 4001-4048
• By default the bridging client will use RAW TCP so you must select RFC2217 if this is the console server mode you have specified on the server gateway
• Also you may secure the network communications by enabling SSH tunnelling for the connection between the two console servers (refer faq 278 )

 

You could alternately use the command line to set up the ends of the tunnel e.g. assuming you are connecting port 1 of the client to port 1 on the server, and the client side IP is 192.168.0.100 (the server side is 192.168.0.101): 

# config -s config.ports.port1.mode=unused 

# kill -HUP $(cat /var/run/portmanager.pid) 

# pmbridge -l /dev/ttyS0 192.168.0.101 5001

The first two commands disable portmanager from using "port 1". The third command starts the tunnel bridging serial port 1 to 192.168.254.0.101 tcp port 5001. The server side must have RFC-2217 enabled on port 1 and you will now have end to end connectivity.