BeagleBoard/GSoC/BeagleBone-based-Serial-Terminal-Server

=BeagleBone based Serial Terminal Server =

Student: Harikrishnan R Mentors: Michael Welling Code: TBD Wiki: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard/GSoC/BeagleBone-based-Serial-Terminal-Server GSoC: TBD

=Status= This project is currently just a proposal.

=Proposal=

About you
IRC: illustris Github: https://github.com/illustris School: BITS Pilani, Goa campus Country: India Primary language: English Typical work hours: 11:30 PM to 4.30 PM UTC Previous GSoC participation: No previous participation.

About your project
Project name:   BeagleBone based Serial Terminal Server Task Completion: Pull request.

Description
Often in embedded development it is valuable to have a serial terminal server which can retain a serial port connection along with buffered past I/O separate from a typical host PC, either for longer term logging of serial port data or to enable remote management of a device via serial port. Commercial units which have this capability are very expensive, with even single port serial terminal servers consting hundreds of dollars. The BeagleBone has 4 highly capable UARTs exposed besides UART0 through the cape connectors. A simple cape hardware could easily enable a BeagleBone to physically have all the interfaces needed to be a serial terminal server.

Deliverables
The project will have the following features:
 * 1) User connects to the terminal server over SSH
 * 2) A command line interface will allow users to configure and select the interfaces to monitor and log
 * 3) Logs will be split and archived every 24 hours
 * 4) User will be able to attach to and detach from individual serial terminal sessions, similar to tmux/screen
 * 5) User will be able to view logged data from the serial device

Implementation

 * A new user will be added to the BeagleBone for users to connect to
 * The new user will have a custom prompt instead of bash
 * termios will be used to configure serial interfaces
 * Incoming data will be piped to a log file without buffering
 * When a user attaches to a session, the log will be tailed to display the serial output
 * Input from the user will be piped to the serial device in interactive mode
 * A cron job will handle log archiving

Experience and approach
As the controls engineering lead of Hyperloop India, I have worked extensively with embedded electronics and software. One of the nodes used in the pod electronics was built around a BeagleBone with a device tree overlay for enabling DCAN1. I have also ported FreeRTOS to a RISC-V processor I helped design.

Contingency
What will you do if you get stuck on your project and your mentor isn’t around? If Michael and Stephanie are unavailable, I would try asking for help on IRC. I would also consult relevant manpages and documentation.

Benefit
This project will allow users to monitor up to 4 UART devices over ethernet without having to use either an expensive serial terminal server, or an always-online computer with USB hubs and multiple USB-TTL converters.