Serial over IP Technology - TOP solutions to access COM over IP

It’s also possible that the RS232 standard will remain one of the most common ways to provide communications between PCs and their peripherals. New-generation devices that fit a USB port instead of a serial interface still have a driver that allows them to emulate RS232 port for connections to serial apps.

You may find yourself faced with the need to access a serial-based peripheral device that is not located anywhere near your computer. If you are struggling to find a solution to this problem, let us suggest making use of serial over IP technology to connect to the remote equipment.

A serial over IP adapter converts data transmission from COM to IP format. It can be in the form of serial over IP hardware or software solutions. In either case, translation occurs on data sent through a COM port to TCP/IP format. This allows it to be transferred over an IP-based network like the Internet.

This TCP/IP converter software can be used for a variety of purposes, including:

• connecting to serial ports from virtual environments such as VirtualBox, VMware, and Hyper-V;
  
  
• creating virtual serial interfaces that emulate and are recognized by your machine as physical RS232, RS422, and RS485 ports;
  
  
• sharing COM ports on Linux, Windows, and ARM-based devices and computers;
  
  
• enabling the transmission of RAW data;
  
  
• redirecting real or virtual serial traffic over UDP/IP.

There are no distance limitations when using Serial over Ethernet Connector (SEC), making the location of the connected device irrelevant. Simply install the application on the machine with a physical connection to the device and the computers which require access to it. That’s all that is needed to establish communication with the remote device.

Serial to TCP/IP Connector offers a cross-platform solution that lets you share devices between servers and clients running different operating systems. It provides a user-friendly method of sharing any real or virtual serial ports over an IP network. Some alternative solutions are:

Multiple options are available to redirect serial traffic over IP networks in a Microsoft Windows environment. A popular choice with serial hardware and software developers is the Serial-TCP/IP application. The application facilitates code testing and debugging by enabling developers to communicate with remote serial ports over a TCP/IP network. Features of the application that appeal to the developer community include the ability to remotely ping devices, monitor COM port activity, and provide logs for troubleshooting. The app offers a simple and intuitive method of managing serial ports in Windows environments.

Utilizing a hardware Serial to IP Converter may provide a more durable solution in certain usage scenarios. A hardware converter translates serial signals from protocols such as RS232, RS422, and RS485 into IP-based data that can be transmitted over a network. Hardware Serial to IP Converters are typically used in environments requiring reliable, long-distance communication. For example, hardware solutions are often used to support industrial automation, remote building management, and when integrating legacy components with modern networking technology.

Most modern Linux distros have native methods with which you can enable communication with remote serial interfaces.

To establish serial over IP on Linux machines, you can use the netcat procedure. You will need to run a new instance of it for each connection you want to create. You can also build a persistent connection by using the xinetd service with the following configuration.

{ port = 5900
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/bin/netcat
server_args = "-l 5900 < /dev/ttyS0" }

The /dev/ttyS0 parameter needs to be changed to the name of the serial device which will be connected. Use the stty or setserial commands to configure serial port parameters such as parity and baud rate.