Connecting Ethernet device to serial port

[Speelgoedmannetje]

bloodline wrote:

Never feel guilty about avoiding your family... you owe them nothing!!! :madashell:

What have you people always against family? I love my family, and vice versa (aunts still treat me as the benjamin of the family :oops:)

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
Remember, this is just my theory... If you can Telent, that make sure you explore that avenue FULLY!!

Have just checked, and it's definitely a config interface only. After outputting the current config, the telnet interface gives you the following options, none of which allow any control or monitoring of what is happening in the device.

Change Setup:
  0 Server
  1 Channel 1
  2 Channel 2
  3 E-mail
  5 Expert
  6 Security
  7 Defaults
  8 Exit without save
  9 Save and exit            Your choice ?

bloodline wrote:
But yes... I think the solution... if there is one, will come from examining the packets.

It should be fairly easy to have a look at the packets. But I have no idea how I would go about writing an app to custom make a packet and shove it in to the TCP/IP stack. Furthermore, the app would have to monitor traffic coming from the device to detect state changes. I'm losing enthusiasm for this now...

bloodline wrote:
Well, if it is a fixed function device... then you could easily build a library of packets that correspond to the commands you issue...

Yes, there will be only a limited number of commands I will ever need to send to it, so once the I/O was working I could easily tweak the data it sends to make it do different things. That's the easy part...

--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Doesn't offer the export mode a CLI?
Btw. you can use Wireshark to observe the communication, as raw data.

[bloodline]

motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Remember, this is just my theory... If you can Telent, that make sure you explore that avenue FULLY!!

Have just checked, and it's definitely a config interface only. After outputting the current config, the telnet interface gives you the following options, none of which allow any control or monitoring of what is happening in the device.

Change Setup:
  0 Server
  1 Channel 1
  2 Channel 2
  3 E-mail
  5 Expert
  6 Security
  7 Defaults
  8 Exit without save
  9 Save and exit            Your choice ?

bloodline wrote:
But yes... I think the solution... if there is one, will come from examining the packets.

It should be fairly easy to have a look at the packets. But I have no idea how I would go about writing an app to custom make a packet and shove it in to the TCP/IP stack. Furthermore, the app would have to monitor traffic coming from the device to detect state changes. I'm losing enthusiasm for this now...

Post the IP... I wanna log on :-D

[bloodline]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Never feel guilty about avoiding your family... you owe them nothing!!! :madashell:

What have you people always against family?

I didn't choose my family... I am disappointed with some of their decisions and actions.

I love my family, and vice versa (aunts still treat me as the benjamin of the family :oops:)

Yet, she still hasn't learned your name?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Benjamin means the youngest son.

[bloodline]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Benjamin means the youngest son.

Ahhh right you are! I though she might have dementia or something :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

bloodline wrote:

Ahhh right you are! I though she might have dementia or something :-)

No, they're all very well. It's just very coincidental that they all love to talk about how I was when I was a kid, (it always has to be me) The whole female side of the family loves to talk about that.
Yes we all know I was a bit weird as a kid. :lol:

[motorollin]

Right, we're going to have a look at the packets going to the RFXCOM's IP address so we can see what is being sent. Then I'm going to try hacking up a socket application in OS X. Shouldn't be a mammoth task to write a small console app which will take the RFXCOM command and IP address as arguments and then transmit the command to the correct IP.

Where this will get more difficult will be receiving data from the RFXCOM. Apparently the software is configured with the RFXCOM's IP address so it knows where to send data. But it also listens for events coming from the RFXCOM so it can act upon them. How would this work? Would I have to maintain an open socket with the RFXCOM's IP address? If I do this, will packets coming from the RFXCOM automatically be delivered via the Mac's TCP/IP stack to my application?

--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:

Where this will get more difficult will be receiving data from the RFXCOM. Apparently the software is configured with the RFXCOM's IP address so it knows where to send data. But it also listens for events coming from the RFXCOM so it can act upon them. How would this work? Would I have to maintain an open socket with the RFXCOM's IP address? If I do this, will packets coming from the RFXCOM automatically be delivered via the Mac's TCP/IP stack to my application?

--
moto

Yeps, TCP uses sockets.

[motorollin]

Do I need to open a socket specifically between the application and the software on the RFXCOM? Or do I just open a socket to the Mac's TCP/IP stack and send a packet addressed with the RFXCOM's IP address?

--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

You must know what port the RFXCOM works on, and it's IP-port. As far as my experience goes, this will be done in a program (on your mac in this case). It can of course also be done using scripts.

[motorollin]

I'm in way over my head here. I found some examples of BSD sockets, one of which "calls" a socket. The main function of it seems to call socket() and connect(). But I don't know whether this is as a client or a server :crazy:

--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

The device is a server.

[motorollin]

Ok, just need to figure out whether the code I have written is for a client or server. Ugh, I need to put this away until after my exam...

--
moto

[motorollin]

Hmm Wikipedia actually helped :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_sockets#TCP

Explains how to set up a client and a server. I guess the RFXCOM is doing all the server business, so I'll have a look at the client setup tomorrow after the Exam Of Doom.

--
moto