serial-to-tcp

An app which reads data from a serial port and serves it on a TCP port.

How to use

Clone this repo and build the app as outlined below (artifacts may be provided in the future).

The app takes its configuration from the command line. Multiple instances of the app can be executed at once. The app can serve multiple clients at once.

Root privileges are most likely needed to open the serial device (and to open a port under < 1024, if applicable).

Example

Read from USB device ttyUSB0 with a baud rate of 115200, and serve the data on TCP port 2022:

serial-to-tcp -s /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200 -p 2022

On another client in the network, assuming the server has the IP address 192.168.0.123, test reading from the TCP port, e.g. using socat:

socat - TCP4:192.168.0.123:2022

Usage

USAGE:
    serial-to-tcp [OPTIONS] --serial-device <path> --baud-rate <number> --port <number>

OPTIONS:
    -n                            (optional) If set, do not poll the serial device: If the device
                                  is/becomes unavailable, terminate immediately.
    -s, --serial-device <path>    The serial device to read from, e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0
    -b, --baud-rate <number>      The serial baud rate to use, e.g. 115200
    -a, --address <ip>            The IP (v4 or v6) address to bind to [default: 0.0.0.0]
    -p, --port <number>           The port to listen on
    -h, --help                    Print help information
    -V, --version                 Print version information

Autostart

An OpenRC script is available.

Building

You'll need a rust toolchain, a recent stable version is recommended.

In the cloned repository:

cargo build --release

Cross-building

For targetting another platform, you could manually install the required toolchain and build respectively, e.g.:

cargo build --target=arm-unknown-linux-musleabihf

An easier way, if you have Podman or Docker installed, may be using cross, e.g.:

cargo install cross
cross build --target=arm-unknown-linux-musleabihf