UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

That looks almost like line noise...

Thinking back, I killed the process that was running the console login because I suspected that it was sitting in a directory I needed to unmount. I thought that a reboot would clear up any mess that that might cause, maybe it didn't...?

I am having the same issue. Slightly different setup, but exactly the same symptoms. I am feeding a Solaris box from a Linux box via a 1-way serial feed. Blackbox mini-fiber modems on each end. If I feed from Linux to Linux, everything cool. cat of /dev/ttyS0 on receiving Linux box show pristine,readable data. Hook it into the Solaris box and everything coming all garbled and stupid. Fiddled with 99.99 percent of the settings. Just need to find that last .01 and I'm pretty sure problem solved. I'll post a solution if I find it.


---------- Post updated at 12:50 PM ---------- Previous update was at 09:25 AM ----------


on my solaris box, I'm trying the following : stty clocal </dev/ttya
when I do a stty -a </dev/ttya "clocal" is still showing "-clocal. Does anyone have any ideas on what is wrong with the command or how I could toggle -clocal to clocal?
referring to my explanation above, just trying to get the "com" related tty settings to match up between the Linux and Solaris box.

According to:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/data/802/802-3241-10/pdf/08.cfgparamnew.pdf

The hyphen at the end is normal.

My experiences have been on another OS but serial is serial, mostly.
I've seen similar on stuff I deal with, corona's post set off the alarms, and recall a couple of issues with floating signal ground. In fact, I had one account that ran serial for at least 5 years with no signal ground at all with no problems until a hardware change and garbage started floating in.
You might also want to investigate the possibility of a ground loop.

I don't know about the OPs problem, but mine was resolved by purchasing a usb-serial cable and going out serial to serial that way. No kidding. no other configuration changes. Linux to Linux through the onboard serial worked fine, but going out to a Sun box required the usb to serial cable. go figure.

Those happen. The Sun probably was sensitive and your onboard probably couldn't put out enough current to get things transitioned.
How long was the cable? What wire gauge, if you know? Both affect the waveshape of the signal.
Looking at problem serial signals with a scope can show some serious RC degradation of the leading edge of the bits. At the worst I've seen the normal square wave was rounded off so much that the signal never made it to the rail voltage before the transition to the other rail started.

Note to danny.hudson:
Do you have the capability to slow down the communications speed? To maybe 1200b to see what the result might be. If you are having problems from the same cause as HawaiiMike changing the speed may improve things enough to make a preliminary diagnosis.
232 over 25 feet gets iffy. Heavier gauge wire makes things worse. Line drivers not able to push full current through the wire affects things. Non-standard 232 implementations create grief. Onboard, all-in-one chips seem to create more problems than separate UART and line driver/line receiver setups.