Perle Systems Technical Note

TruePort Re-director Utility

Provide true remote serial ports over an Ethernet LAN with remote ports
appearing as “Direct Connect” COM or TTY ports to an application

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Many software applications have been written to communicate with devices that are directly connected to a server’s serial COM ports.  More and more companies want to network enable these applications because the devices that were directly connected to the servers COM ports need to be moved to a remote location some distance way from the application server.

Since the original application was designed to talk directly to a specific COM port a solution, which is seamless to both the application and device, must be implemented to enable communication across an IP network infrastructure.  In other words, a solution that makes the application think is talking directly to the COM port is required.  TruePort software, used with Perle Terminal Servers and I/O Device Servers provides an ideal solution.

Perle’s TruePort is a COM port re-director driver utility that is installed on the application server.  All COM port directed data sent by the application is re-directed by TruePort across the IP/Ethernet network to remote Perle Terminal Servers or I/O Device Servers which have the target devices connected to them. Data and serial port signaling is transparently communicated between the application and remote device.

Many organizations run these applications on various server platforms.  While other Terminal Server vendors provide a COM port redirector that is limited to the Windows operating systems, Perle’s TruePort provides a comprehensive driver set supporting a broad range of operating systems such as:

• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows XP/2000
• Windows NT
• Linux
• SCO OpenServer, UnixWare
• SUN Solaris Sparc and Intel
• AIX
• HP UX
• NCR UNIX

Features and Benefits

• Application software changes are not required, eliminating costly upgrades and modifications
• Allows multiple connections with multiple COM ports
• IPv6 addressing across all operating systems
• Initiate sessions from either TruePort or remote device servers
• Seamless communication of serial data and port signaling
• SSL client/server capability using AES or 3DES encryption
• Ability to pass serial control signaling information across TCP for secure transmission of information on SSH and SSL sessions
• Provides up to 4000 COM ports with Windows, Unix and Linux supporting large serial device deployments
  Limited to O/S restrictions and server processing power
• TruePort is available with a no charge license for use with Perle Terminal Servers and I/O Device Servers

Applications

POS and data acquisition – Enable communication between a remote software application and devices such as barcode readers, scanners, weigh scales, tills, etc connected to Perle IOLAN Terminal Servers.

Industrial Automation – Enable communication between a remote SCADA/HMI application and devices such as PLC’s connected to Perle Terminal Servers.

Modbus ASCII/RTU applications can also perform data acquisition and control of remote I/O devices connected to Perle I/O Device Servers.

Data Encryption over SSL Connections – When utilized with Perle’s TruePort, an application can maintain a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) session with remote devices attached to Perle Terminal Servers, protecting sensitive data through the use of powerful encryption ciphers such as AES.

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