User:Maffblaster/Draft/USB to serial

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Most modern, user facing computer hardware does not come with RS-232 (serial) ports accessible from the device's exterior casing. This becomes an issue when attempting to configure or troubleshoot network devices with a console port uses serial communication. Most all modern hardware does include at least one USB port that is accessible from the exterior casing.

The Linux kernel has support for USB to serial adapters. These devices are also known as USB serial converters. Support can be enabled in the kernel, udev will configure the device, and an engineer can obtain success troubleshooting devices via the console port.

Installation

Kernel

Enable support for USB to serial by selecting the following symbols in the kernel's configuration: CONFIG_USB_SERIAL, CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_CONSOLE, CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_GENERIC, and CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_SIMPLE:

KERNEL USB to serial support
Device Drivers  --->
   [*] USB support  --->
      <*>   USB Serial Converter support  --->
         --- USB Serial Converter support
         [*]   USB Serial Console device support
         [*]   USB Generic Serial Driver
         <*>   USB Serial Simple Driver

From this point, specific drivers for each hardware device can be enabled as necessary. To reduce kernel size it is wise to build support for additional adapters as modules.

See also

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