Getting serial console working

[plugcrazy]

Another issue with the USB-serial is that, each time I try to connect a new Plug to the USB port of my laptop it recognizes it as a different system and reinstalls the USB-serial driver. Not sure why that should happen. That may have caused my USB-serial driver on my laptop to get a little messed up.

Thanks
PC

[rooster]

This is how XP manages the USB devices, if you plug different sheevaPlugs it will install each one on different COM, my assumption is that the OS recognizes the device using the S/N.
This is annoying but I do not think you can avoid it on XP, Linux based distros do not handle USB devices this way.

[plugcrazy]

ok, thats good to know. Since I have multiple plugs, can I use the USB on another plug to try and get into the serial console of another? This way I could try and recover by reflashing the plug for which I lost the password.

Thanks
PC.

[bzhbok]

My problem was that although /dev/ttyUSB0 appears, /dev/ttyUSB1 does not appear, and I can't connect to /dev/ttyUSB0 with any terminal program.
It does not matter if I let udev do the module loading or I load ftdi_sio manually.

Finally!  I forget what led me to this document but it was the final piece I needed to get my kernel to recognize the serial usb console for the plug in Linux.

I've read the above document, and it gave a tip about removing the brltty package, which I did.
After that, there was still no /dev/ttyUSB1, but I could connect to /dev/ttyUSB0 with gtkterm. Hoorray!

Someone should put this info into the wiki, as it is really useful for ubuntu users...

I had a similar problem : /dev/ttyUSB0 exists but not  /dev/ttyUSB1
I couldn't connect with putty, but as you said gtkterm works fine ! thanks a lot for the advice. I also agree it should be in the wiki

[oldskoolboarder]

For Linux -
http://www.openplug.org/plugwiki/index.php/Setting_up_Serial_Console_Under_Linux

For Windows -

http://www.openplug.org/plugwiki/index.php/Configure_u-Boot_on_the_Plug_Computer

Combined wiki page -

http://www.openplug.org/plugwiki/index.php/Serial_terminal_program

Can we get the Wiki updated w/ new OSX instructions?  The current instructions only seem to work with the Globalscale plug.  It won't work with the Ionics one.

[darkscout]

One problem that I've run into is that when you unplug and plug in the serial console, sometimes linux will assign it to another tty. Say it's /dev/ttyUSB0, if you a powercycle reboot it'll come up on /dev/ttyUSB1. Which means your console (I use screen) won't do anything...

One neat trick is that with the udev, it creates symbolic links in /dev/serial/, so no matter where it comes back, you'll get it right away. Especially important in that ever so time crucial first few seconds trying to catch uBoot.

Here's my command:

Code:

screen /dev/serial/by-id/usb-FTDI_SheevaPlug_JTAGKey_FT2232D_B_FTSFE6XP-if01-port0 115200

[guidol]

Combined wiki page -
http://www.openplug.org/plugwiki/index.php/Serial_terminal_program

The FTDI-USB-Hostdriver for the SheevaPlug isnt at
the Marvell-Page
http://www.marvell.com/files/products/embedded_processors/developer/kirkwood/SheevaPlug_Host_SWsupportPackageWindowsHost.zip
anymore,
but now at the following actual download-page:
plugcomputer.org : SheevaPlug Software & Design Information - Revision 1.2
http://www.plugcomputer.org/index.php/us/resources/downloads?func=select&id=10

[Mike Levin]

Step #1: Master connecting with PuTTY from your PC. The trick is installing the Windows drivers, and knowing that PuTTY has a bug where you have to set your COM and baud rate, then momentarily switch to SSH and back to Serial. Otherwise, you get an "Invalid port number" error. Sounds ridiculous, I know. But I video'd it here http://shankserver.org/2010/09/logging-into-sheevaplug/ You have to be able to get to that point where you can see the Marvell>> prompt, or forget it.

Step #2: Get a 512MB USB drive and ENSURE ITS STABILITY! You can do this by attempting to update Das U-Boot bootloader. If you can't get past this, everything else will be incredibly difficult. You would need a TFTP server, or to follow a VERY LONG online install. To save yourself the grief, just seek out an old, small USB drive. To test it's stable, follow these instructions to update the bootloader http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html

Step #3: If bricked, or the password is lost, unbrick your SheevaPlug. Use the ESIA tool to do so. Follow my instructions here http://shankserver.org/2010/09/unbrick-sheevaplug/ The big gotcha here is that it gets stuck at 8% at "Starting onboard controller". So even if it worked, it looks like it didn't. Just let about 5 minutes go by, then quit out of ESIA, and try to connect with PuTTY. You should be able to get into the box using the default root password, nosoup4u.

[daren76nash]

great post thanks for sharing..very interesting post..

[graviton]

Well, that link bricked mine http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html now I'm unable to login, U-Boot is done starting.

[vco1]

Strange problem here, which kind of bothers me...

Whenever both the network and serial terminal are connected to the plug and I try to get data from the network (e.g. download something through wget, or do an apt-get) the serial terminal loses it's connection. For the record, I can login to the Plug from the serial terminal, but whenever I start something - again: from the serial terminal - the connection is gone. Everything is pretty stable with just the serial terminal. But that of course means I can't download anything.

I'm using puTTY on WinXP for the serial terminal.

Any clues on what might be wrong?