I've been looking into a c1000 as a replacement for my 860. I used my 860 to configure my cisco equipment via the console until my 860 decided to shed the TXD pin from the connector.

Anyway, I have seen a little speculation that the "hidden" port on the back of the c1000 is acutally a serial port similar to the serial/usb port on the cxx0 series, but other reports say that it is just a diag port. Does any one know if this has been confirmed as a serial port?

My next question is this: if using a serial cable with the c1000, like I did with the 860, is out of the question, would a standard usb to serial adapter work as expected for minicom or kermit purposes?

thanks,

--webslngr

count me as one interested in this answer

I've seen a couple of reports on this forums (in regards to the C3000), that the diag port does function as a TTL (0-3.3v) serial port. (I've seen someone mention in passing that this is the same as the ports on the older Z's, but I haven't confirmed that) How well that works with your equipment will vary. One report specifically mentioned that the C3000 puts out info on the serial port while booting.

You can also use a USB->Serial convertor on the USB port.

I saw the same info about the 3.3V serial on the c3000 forums, and I had assumed that the usb -> serial would work as well. I was just curious to see if anyone had confirmed it or confirmed what else the diag port did.

I guess it makes sense to call it a diag port if it spews diag information at boot to the console.

Thanks again.

--webslngr

The original Z port apparently had JTAG as well as USB and Serial. Likely the port on the new Z's has just JTAG and serial. I'm not sure why sharp decided that we didn't need serial any more.

It might have something to do with the fact that they haven't got it wired properly for USB any more, and someone trying to use their old CXX0 USB cable would end up frying something by feeding 5v USB into the port.

that makes sense. good thought.

thanks,
--webslngr

Is the new diag port on the 3000 the same socket as the other clamshells?

The port is identical. In fact, I just replaced the factory port cover with the port cover from my 860. The serial cable is a good fit on the back of the 3000 - it won't interfere with anything. I haven't actually tried using it yet, though.

Sharp has been using this port on Zaurii for a very long time now. The serial cable (CE-170TS) was originally a part for the MI series Zaurus.

That's very nice to know, thanks!

kahm,

can you let us know if/how it works when you try it?

thanks!

--webslngr

I have used the C3000 with the serial cable to configure Cisco routers.
It seems to be close enough to RS-232 for them.

I also tried plugging the cable USB into the router's USB port with the Zaurus configured to emulate a
USB disk drive. The drive emulation does not respond fast enough though, so Cisco IOS doesn't like it.
I may try tweaking IOS to be more forgiving, since it would be really useful to have the Zaurus
be both console and boot device for an unconfigured router.

One still has the option of setting up the Z as a tftp server for the router to boot from, of course,
and that works with all the routers, not just the new ones.

The Z could make the world's niftiest little network administration and management tool.

Do you use it that way? A pocket console is nifty enough, but it can obviously do a lot more.
What sort of network management stuff do you run on the Zaurus?
If some of Cisco's management tools could run on the Z, would that be of interest to you?
I work for Cisco.

Excellent. That was what I was looking for. Thanks.



I find it very usefull for this sort of thing. There is nothing worse than having to wedge yourself behind a full rack with a laptop when there is barely enough room for you.

The short answer to your question is that currently I don't do enough cisco work for this to be an issue. Having console access is good enogh. However, I am starting my own company where this is sort of thing will be a main focus; so yes, I can imagine having cisco's tools on my Z would be of interest.

What kind of work do you do at cisco?


--webslngr

I work on the certificate infrastructrure and related cryptographic code in the routers.
I don't work on the management utilities, but I am in contact with those who do.

Getting more of the tools onto linux instead of windoze would help, and this would be additional ammunition for that,
and putting them on the Z might be easy to sell internally on the coolness factor.
Interest from customers in the field is important as well, of course.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from compiling all the public-domain tools for the Z right now.

Might be handy to have a wired Ethernet interface for downloading software to routers and for
configuring routers that use web-based configuration. They often expect to be on a 192.168.x.x
or DHCP network for initial setup. I have CF for both wired and wireless, but will be trying a USB
one. That would allow me to keep the connection to the building infrastructure while
configuring/reflashing routers.

I'd love to hear how you did this. I've been trying all day and can only get data from the Z to the PC. See my post.

I'm getting a C1000 this week and was curious what I would need to do all this. I manage a lot of Cisco equipment and serial/TFTP connections are exactly what I need. I could never get TFTP working on my old 5500. What serial cable would I need? Would anything from my 5500 unit work?

I suggest *not* buying the SerialIO cable as it seems not to allow receipt of data with the C1/3000. If you get the Sharp cable please reply to this topic so that I know if it works correctly.

If previous is true on voltage when used with C3000 I'll have to concur, on that unless I'm missing the serial /dev/tty??? device complete no response from serialio cable here.
Which is a pity as I got the male version so I could plug the cisco cable in direct.
AND the only reason I went for it was the 'compatible with CE-170TS ' line from SerialIO and the Sharp £50 price tag + shipping in the UK(For a serial cable!!!) now I have to have something that works so will be paying that and more.

If anyone wants to correct or offer dongle advice to a non solder expert I'd be grateful
I got mine from here, not to knock them as they did a splendid service, just hacked off the cable doesn't work with 3000
http://trisoft.de/en_tzubehr.htm (Soon to be avail on ebay at 1/2 the price!)

So I'd guess the question remains - Does the sharp cable work properly?

Anyone?

Please use search - it has been discussed already on this forum.

To answer your questions - it can be "fixed" by adding rs232 transceiver, but you'll need to have some soldering skills and SerialI/O cable was not really made to be easy modifiable. If you can solder, it's probably simpler to make your own cable from spare holsten connector, db9/db25 connector and rs232 transceiver.

As far as Sharp's cable goes, it does work (at least it seems to have proper rs232 levels), but you'd better be using hardware flow control. Otherwise, the serial driver is not forgiving and high latency in sharp's kernel would limit your maximum baud rate.
-albertr

mingerz,

but why don't you use our service ?
Without a customer reporting that the cable is not working
properly, we don't know that we have to do some more
testing here.
And if it doesn't work, we will exchange it to an original
CE-170TS.
Please give us a chance to show some service
Contact us via email and give us some more details what
you're going to do so we can try to reproduce it.

///TRIsoft

Marc Stephan