[geeks] Connecting two computers with serial cables - do you have to have two cables?

[Jonathan Groll]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 03:49:50PM -0500, Doug McLaren wrote:
 
> You could kill getty on the working machine and then start minicom to
> talk to the other machine.  However, if getty is running on both
> machines, then I'd expect them to fight with each other and keep
> fighting.  By fight, they'd each keep on trying to log into each
> other, stopped/slowed only by the delays getty/login inserts to
> prevent dictionary attacks.

Never mind the fact that the getty process is set to respawn usually,
and so cannot be killed. I will try Geoffrey Mendelson's solution which
does sound like the optimal solution. 

Normally, I wouldn't think twice and just quickly wire up an ethernet
cable and converter plug. However, sadly, all the electronic suppliers
that I've called are out of stock of simple DB9-RJ45 (or DB25-RJ45)
adapters, so I'm going to have to order on epay, these no longer seem to
be as popular as they used to be! I could, of course solder a plug
together, but I've now decided to set up serial access to all my
machines, and it could be 9 or 10 cables...

Cheers,
Jonathan