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Setting up Portshare (Serial Port Redirection for Windows)
The PortShare for Windows software establishes client-server connections between the serial ports on remote console servers and the virtual Windows COM ports it sets up on your PC.
- The portshare_setup.exe program is included on the CD supplied with your console server (or a copy can be freely downloaded from the ftp site.) Double click to start installation and click the PortShare icon on your desktop to start the client
- Click Add Ports and specify a name to identify the connection in "Server Description " tab
- Enter the console server's IP address (or network name) and the Server TCP Port number that matches the port you have configured for the serial device on the remote console server
- Telnet RFC2217 mode is configured by default so the range of port numbers available on a 16 port console server would be 5001-5016
- Alternately check RAW mode (4001- 4048 on a 48 port console server)
- Encrypted mode enables SSL/TLS encryption of the data going to the port and you will need to enter a Password. This mode requires firmware 3.1 in the console server (which will not be be available till mid 2010)
- Select the starting COM port (COM1 to COM4096) and the number of ports to be added (sequential port numbers will be assigned automatically). Click OK
- To configure a COM port simply click on the desired COMx label
- You can then configure the COM port in the Connection and Advanced windows:
- Connect at system startup—When enabled PortShare will try to connect to the console server when the PortShare service starts (as opposed to waiting for the application to open
- Time between connection retries specifies the number of seconds between TCP connection retries after a client-initiated connection failure. Valid values are 1-255 (The default is 1 second and PortShare will continue attempting to reconnect forever to the console server at this interval)
- The Send keep alive packets option tests if the TCP connection is still up when no data has been sent for a while by sending keep-alive messages. Select this option and specify period of time (in milliseconds) after which Port Share sends a command to remote console server end in order to verify connection's integrity and keep the connection alive
- The Keep Alive Interval specifies the number of seconds to wait on an idle connection before sending a keep-alive message. The default is 1 second. The Keep Alive Timeout specifies how long Port Share should wait for a keep alive response before timing out the connection.
- Disable Nagle Algorithm — the Nagle Algorithm is enabled by default and it reduces the number of small packets sent by PortShare across the network
- Check Receive DSR/DCD/CTS changes if the flow control signal status from the physical serial port on console server is to be reflected back to the Windows COM port driver (as some serial communications applications prefer to run without any hardware flow control i.e. in “two wire” mode)
- The Propagate local port changes allows complete serial device control by the Windiws application so it operates exactly like a directly connected serial COM port. It provides a complete COM port interface between the attached serial device and the network, providing hardware and software flow control. So the baud rate etc of the remote serial port is controlled by the settings for that COM port on Windows computer. If not selected then the port serial configuration parameters are set on the console server.
- With the Emulate Baud Rate selected PortShare will only send data out at the baud rate configured by the local Application using the COM port
Note: Ensure the remote serial device is connected to the nominated port on your remote console server and the serial port has been configured i.e. set the RS232 Common Settings such as baud rate, select Console server mode for the port and specify the appropriate protocol to be used (RAW TCP , RFC2217 or PortShare Secure mode for encrypted communication). Also ensure you can access the console server
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