On Thursday 26 February 2009 13:37, William L. Maltby wrote: > > > Look in your /var/log/messages file. At boot, you should see the device > > > recognized. > > > > Feb 26 12:12:25 borg2 kernel: serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is > > a 16550A > > Feb 26 12:12:25 borg2 kernel: serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is > > a 16550A > > Didn't you say there was only one port? There might be a second on the > main board that is accessible via a header. If it's not hooked up > disable all but the first in the BIOS (later). It's not really hurting > anything as is, but it will free the I/O address and IRQ for assignment > to other devices. I believe you are right. I remember those - and the 25-9-pin adapter :-). Peering around the back in a dark corner, I could well have been mistaken. OK - female socket, so that's a COM port, I think. Now I'm really confused. The BIOS definitely only shows one COM port. To be honest, I can't remember whether I connected it or not. I guess I ought to open the box and see what's what, but not today - it's already too late to do that. > But wait until you have things working - I suspect you > have _two_ ports (probably 1 9 pin and 1 25 pin). A second port of 25 > pins might easily be mistaken for a printer port. Long ago a switch from > Centronics style to RS-232 style began to become the "standard". > Physically, it looks the same as a serial port, the visual difference > being the "gender" of the connector will be opposite. > > > Feb 26 12:12:25 borg2 kernel: 00:05: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a > > 16550A > > > > Is this what I'm looking for? I don't see anything else. > > Yes. That means that all is as expected (i.e. as _I_ expect). > > > > Also, Minicom is _easy_ to use and understand. Give it a try. Even the > > > man pages are not difficult. > > > > Easy when you know how, eh? :-) I did try it. I changed it to > > monitor /dev/ttyS0. Apart from that, I hadn't a clue what to do. I did > > look at the man page, too, but not knowing what I was looking for didn't > > help. > > I haven't used it for a _long_ time, but IIRC there is an interactive > menu system that works with some keystroke, maybe <ESC> key. Ctrl-A Z - yes, I found that. > Look for > that stuff in the man pages and it should be clear sailing. > > First, have you set the baud rate correctly? A lot of things used to > default to 9600, but 38400 became common later on. Do the docs for the > unit specify? If so, use the stty command, or in minicom or other > terminal emulator it's method, to set the baud rate to that needed. > Usually these days, no parity check is done so 8 bit characters should > be OK. > > Now, since the port is recognized the failure has to be from the port > onward. If the RS-232 9 or 25 pin shell is connected via a cable to the > main board, make sure that the cable connector is connected to the right > header on the main board. Since Linux reported two ports, there should > be two headers on the main board (_if_ that's the method - some ma > inboards have them mounted directly on the main board). If the > header/connector is not keyed, it may be connected backwards. If you > have two RS-232D shells (9 or 25 pin) you may be connecting your cable > to the wrong one. > I'll check all that out tomorrow. I only have a supplied cable for 9 pin, so if everything else checks out I'll just have to try changing settings to ttyS1 and see if that helps. > Moving on, have you been able to verify the cable is good? If you have > an RS-232 patch device with LED's, you can see activity (DTR, DCD, etc.) > by hooking the cable to it. If you don't have one of those, a digital > multi-meter can be used to see if you have expected voltages on certain > pins (+/- 12 volts, IIRC). If you don't have one of those, a plain old > dumb terminal can be hooked up and settings changed in a trial and error > method. > I'm not handy with a multimeter, but if I have to, I'll give it a try :-) > Since they supplied the cable, is it new enough to assume that it is not > damaged? If so, I suspect something easy like baud rate. Brand new. I know anything's possible, but I'd put a bad cable very low on the list of likelihoods. Settings at present: A Serial Device : /dev/ttyS0 B Lockfile Location : /var/lock C Callin Program : D Callout Program : E Bps/Par/Bits : 38400 8N1 F Hardware Flow Control : Yes G Software Flow Control : No All this is as set up in nut. Liebert do supply 'Multilink' software, but in theory nut installs the latest Liebert Multilink drivers. I'm seriously wondering whether I should remove nut and install the supplied software. However, I realise that I need to check the hardware situation first. Hopefully that will be done tomorrow. Anne