[rescue] connecting to ultra 60 via usb serial adapter - SOLVED

[Dimitar Vasilev]

Thanks to all!
To be honest up to now I have never played with serial consoles
seriously and was sceptic of buying stuff (cables, Belkins, Keyspans
etc), which afterwards became useless as you haven't tested it in
advance, you have not a quite good idea what you need and have spent
your week-end beer budget on cables that don't work yet.

Principally the result is that principally you CAN connect to a
COM/LOM port provided you have the right cables.
Unfortunately in some countries, computer shops work from 9-17
Mo-Fri[0], tend to rename all the parts from English to the local
language and you cannot agree with them on what you need until you
have bought 50%+ of the store.

For google and the summary options are:

1. usb serial + null modem - the less parts you have in the chain the
better. Finally I stumbled upon a real fabric null modem cable db9 to
db9. Haven't tested it myself as I missed to buy some more changers,
but two colleagues  reported it working on their home rs6000 machine.
We have the same id10t problem here.

Links of interest for usb serial + null modem:

a)Testing the null-modem cable

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/D48BA43C59B60277862569EE000501FD

b) Sun pin-outs

http://www.sunhelp.org/unix-serial-port-resources/serial-pinouts/

c)The Hardware book

http://www.hardwarebook.net/

Will test also with null-terminal

2. Proposed Jonathan Patschke

"I use a KeySpan USA-19QW[0] on my Mac.  I either use a LapLink cable and
a Zip drive cable, or a null-modem adapter, a gender changer, a
DE9<->DB25 adapter, and a straight-through 25-pin extension cable."

3. Proposed by Patt Finnegan

"About the cleanest/easiest way to do this is to pick up a DB25 to RJ45
and DE9 to RJ49 adapter, and wire them together with an appropriate
piece of RJ45-terminated cable...  If you can find a spare set of Cisco
console cable "parts" (a kit usually has a DE9-F to RJ45 and a DE25-F
to RJ45 set of "terminal" adapters, and a DB25-M to RJ45 "modem"
adapter).  Take the RJ45 to DE9 adapter and the DB25-M to RJ45 "modem"
adapter, and wire them together with a piece of CAT5 (not the included
roll-over cable!)"

Link of interest: 5 in 1 admin cable

http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html

Enjoy the Sunday and have a great week!

[0] bought a second-hand monitor from a guy as a temporary hack.
 After a short vacation will continue with testing and making my cables.
-- 
4X\Xbj` 2PaX[UR
Dimitar Vassilev

GnuPG key ID: 0x4B8DB525
Keyserver: pgp.mit.edu
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