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

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 02:00:24PM +0200, Jonathan Groll wrote:
> I would like to connect two computers together by serial cable, since
> these machines are running headless on my bookshelf, the idea behind
> using the serial cables is to offer an emergency login prompt to each
> machine should things go wrong. 
> 
> So each machine will be running a serial getty. The problem is that the
> device is locked by the getty process (at least under linux), so trying
> to launch minicom to see the other machine over the same cable results
> in "/dev/ttyS0 is locked". Is it really necessary to have two cables to
> connect two machines in this manner?

Run uugetty and use a compatible terminal program. Originaly designed
for UUCP, uugetty looks for UUCP lock files for the port and quietly
goes to sleep when it finds one.

Geoff.

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