FreeBSD6.2 What is the easiest Way to Capture RS-232 Serial Data?

[Derek Ragona]

At 11:55 AM 2/14/2008, Martin McCormick wrote:
>         I wrote a C program several years ago that works and
>logs output from a telephone switch to a file and runs in
>FreeBSD4.x.
>
>         I just opened /dev/ttyd0 for reading and it has run for
>up to 1,000 days at a time, but it also
>has issues as one might expect.
>
>         It can be killed if one of the incoming characters
>happens to be an EOF (4) which is quite possible if somebody
>umplugs or plugs in the cable and creates garbage on the line.

If you use fread to read the stream, you can test using feof or ferror and 
conditionally keep reading depending on the condition.

You should add signal handling so the program is only killed when you want 
it to be.


>         The data from the switch is ASCII with carriage
>return/linefeed sequences so nothing really harsh goes on, but I
>need to make it as bullet-proof as possible.
>
>         In addition, the actual data are 7-bit, odd parity with
>1 stop. I basically ignored that fact last time and masked off
>the MSB of each character and that's how it has been for 5
>years.
>
>         Now, I am writing a similar program to log different
>data from that same telephone switch and I want to do better
>this time, but not reen vent any wheels I don't have to.
>
>         What is the best way to use as much of the existing UNIX
>environment as possible to listen to /dev/ttyd[x] with no
>interpretation of incoming data?
>
>         The data will be dumped at the end of each line, stored
>in a file, and other action may be taken but normally, the
>program will just be in a receive-blocked mode, waiting to hear
>something new.
>
>         About the only thing I am doing differently this time is
>trying to set the tty such that it doesn't look for any EOF or
>other control codes in the data. The data will be treated as raw
>and what ever comes across is okay. The program will clean it up
>to make it good for the file.

You still need to handle when the cord is unplugged, or put the server in a 
secure location away from other people.

>         As I stated, the standard /dev/ttyd device has done
>amazingly well in FreeBSD4.7, but some of that has been dumb
>luck. We shouldn't have to warn people in the area that they
>could kill the logger by unplugging the cable since they
>wouldn't be aware that they stopped it until we found out later
>when there was nothing in the file.
>
>         Searching archives dealing with serial communications
>produced good information about dialup lines and terminals, but
>this is actually less complex.
>
>         Many thanks for any good advice about stty or anything
>else that will allow one to use standard devices for this
>project.

If you want the program to be more capable of staying running you can have 
the program fork a child and if the child dies, fork a new child.  This is 
the method used for many running services.  Just be sure if the child dies 
the log file is closed and that same file is opened by the new child.

         -Derek

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.