Putty And Serial Connection


Windy

Still Fresh
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Messages
33
I spend a lot of time configuring network equipment - in particular Cisco kit. To get the initial configuration on the device I use a PC with 9.6kbit/s serial connection to put on the basic config, and then can connect it to the network and can access it from via Telnet, SSH, or whatever.

Anyone have any idea if there is likely to be a port of PuTTY for Pandora which supports serial, Telnet and SSH (it is open source and there are Linux versions available)

Will I be able to get a USB to serial cable to use with Pandora. They are widely available from places like Maplin for around £12, but I suspect these need specific drivers which may be the stumbling block. If I could use such as cable in conjunction with PuTTY on the Pandora it would save me having to lug a laptop PC around (and be a great advert for the Pandora into IT departments around the country).
 
so PuTTY does Telnet and SSH... Then my question to you would have to be: why not use telnet and ssh?
 
zhasha said:
so PuTTY does Telnet and SSH... Then my question to you would have to be: why not use telnet and ssh?


Because it is neat and simple app which also includes serial support, enables me to log the conversations to a files, and other built in tools - appreciate there are other ways to skin a cat but PuTTY is very popular, is open source, and is available on a number of Platforms - including hopefully Pandora!!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
don't know about the rest, but I had a USB to serial adaptor for my old palm M105 and that had no driver, it was just plug and play, on a Linux PC though.

serial adaptor ad

lists this one as working with Linux, but no mention of a driver on the disk, maybe support is included in the kernel drivers under Linux, lots of stuff "just works" with Linux when you plug it in.
 
You need to connect via serial i.e. console prior to being able to telnet/ssh to the device, Putty just happens to do all 3. I guess what Windy needs is a terminal that connect via a usb serial @ 9.6k, then he can config the router/switch after this he can use ssh/telnet as per norm.
 
You don't need any special drivers for the USB serial. I just plug it in and run minicom. (I haven't tried putty.) To use the USB serial port instead of the built-in serial port you need to set the device to "/dev/ttyUSB0". That's it.
 
Ari64 said:
You don't need any special drivers for the USB serial. I just plug it in and run minicom. (I haven't tried putty.) To use the USB serial port instead of the built-in serial port you need to set the device to "/dev/ttyUSB0". That's it.

I have been using both Putty and Minicom for years
on windows and linux respectively.

Putty is the most popular on windows because it's
small and light, and combines the main protocols in
to one app - but also because it give windows a decent
terminal emulator that can also talk to com ports.
Anyone who has tried using ssh or telnet from the
windows "cmd" will quickly spot the problems with
the terminal types.
I actually spend a lot of time in the putty-cyg
version to give me a decent command line prompt for
cygwin.


Linux usually comes with decent terminal handling
by default (eg xterm) so we can get away with just
using the native clients like ssh and telnet.
That leaves com port connections, and minicom nicely
fills the gap there.
I'd expect the ncurses library and minicom to port
fairly easily as it's all tty based code.

The final bit for the pandora will be kernel support
for a usb to serial adapter. I reckon this is built
in to all the main stream kernels, so should just
work with most of the usb adapters.
I picked up one on dealextreme for around $5.

ID
 
Last edited by a moderator:
There seams to be a Debian package for putty on arm... And that pretty much means putty should be in the Ångström Distribution as well.
I think. Maybe. If your lucky.
B!
 
You can use GNU screen to use serial ports:
http://embeddedfreak.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/using-gnu-screen-to-debug-your-serial-port/

GNU screen also can do much more
 
As long as you use a USB/Serial adaptor then there should be no issue with this. I use putty for microcontroller debugging so it should run fine on pandora (seeing as pandora is really just a tiny laptop)
 
Out of the box it'll probably be very easy to just ssh into the Pandora over WLAN.. just connect it to your WLAN, fire up the sshd or dropbear service on the Pandora, and off you go ..
 
Back
Top