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Chapter 6: Serial and Telnet Extension
Which Type of RS-232 over IP to Use?
1.
Type 1:
You have a machine (normally a PC) with an RS-232 port, and you want
to use this machine’s RS-232 port to communicate with different remote RS-232
devices. Those devices may have different RS-232 baud rate settings. The
communication is RS-232 dual direction and the machine talks to remote RS-232
devices one at a time. You will need to develop RS-232 control software on the
machine by yourself.
2.
Type 2
: You have a machine with an RS-232 port that needs to talk to one
or many RS-232 devices. Under a one-to-many (multicast) scenario, the RS-232
communication is typically one way from the machine to the RS-232 devices.
You can’t develop RS-232 control software on this machine. The RS-232 over IP
channel works without any extra RS-232 control commands.
3.
Type 1 guest mode:
Not currently supported.
4.
Type 2 guest mode:
You have a machine connected to the same network of
MediaCento devices, and the machine wants to communicate with one or many
RS-232 devices through an Ethernet network instead of an RS-232 port. This
means there is no RS-232 port on the machine. Only Ethernet is used on the
machine. Through a standard Ethernet network, the machine communicates with
remote RS-232 devices.
How to Use Type 1 RS-232 over IP
The RS-232 Controller should always use
9600-8n1
. The baud rate can be
overwritten by
astparam ‘s0_baudrate’
to connect to a MediaCento host. You can
switch between “command mode” and “redirection mode” by sending “Ctrl+N”
(0x0E) control code.
For example, to connect to the MediaCento client 1 that has hostname
ast-client020000e1.local
, use the following steps:
• Press “Ctrl+N.” A command prompt “>” appears.
• Enter the connect command “ast_c 0200000000e1 9600-8n1” and press “Enter,”
where “0200000000e1” is the client's unique ID (MAC address by default) and
9600-8n1 is the baud rate setting. o [>= A1.31] The user can add an extra
optional parameter to configure the control code.
