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Null Modems: Connecting MS-DOS to Linux as a Serial Terminal

From phax on Mon, 31 May 1999

Would the terminal program start the null modem connection or would you have to have it be connected before hand through DOS (I don't know a whole lot about DOS)? I know Linux will be looking for a terminal on ttyS0 but will a terminal emulator show up as a terminal connected on that port? Sorry to be such a nag,

Richard Mills

Linux will look for terminal connections on a line (/dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1, whatever) if it it has a "getty" process running on that port.

You set up a getty process by modifying your /etc/inittab and adding a line like:

d1:23:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 38400,19200,9600,2400,1200 ttyS1 vt100

... where you can use agetty, uugetty, mgetty, or getty_ps (but not mingetty). The syntax and additional configuration of each of these other getty packages differs slightly. Search through old issues of the Answer Guy for more detailed explanations and examples.

[ Issues 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, and 23 mention getty, and more recently, issues 34 and 37 describe using X over serial lines. -- Heather ]

As far as the DOS side of this, you generally just have to start up your terminal emulation package and configure it for "direct" or "null-modem" use.

Copyright © 1999, James T. Dennis
Published in The Linux Gazette Issue 43 July 1999

HTML transformation by Heather Stern of Starshine Techinical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

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