[CLUE-Tech] Hyperterminal, minicom, and SSH

[Kevin Cullis]

On Sun, 2003-07-13 at 19:48, David Anselmi wrote:
> Kevin Cullis wrote:
> > My wife uses Hyperterminal to access from home a separate phone
number
> > but has recently access the same info via the organization's network
the
> > MLS system.  Would SSH do the same as Hyperterminal?
> 
> Minicom seems to be exactly what you want.  Is there something about
it 
> you don't like, or something it does/doesn't do that you want?
> 
> <geek stuff><!-- this is kind of long, might want to bail now-->
> Like most things in computing, this stuff is built in layers, so let's
> look at it that way.
> 
> Take a look at your /etc/inittab and you'll see some lines about 
> tty[1-6].  Those are your virtual consoles and a program like getty 
> listens to them.  Want to log in to your machine over a modem?  Just 
> copy the tty1 line and change tty1 to ttyS0, plug your first serial
port 
> into a modem, and dial away.  getty is a program that waits for 
> connections to a serial port and runs the login program when one
occurs. 
>   In the network world you use telnet (client) and telnetd (server) to
> do this.  In the serial world it's minicom (or similar) and getty.
> 

Thanks for the clarification!!

> The other choice you have is to run a network protocol over your
serial 
> line.  That is what most people do with their modems these days and
the 
> program they use (taking the place of minicom) is ppp.  Where minicom 
> and getty allow you to run a keyboard/monitor over a modem, ppp allows
> you to run a network connection over it.  Your modem, serial port, and
> ppp take the place of your network card.

This is where I was getting dicey.  So, it's serial PLUS network.  I'm
so use to network that serial is really not in my thinking/vocabulary.

So, I can make a PPP network connection to the Internet and use minicom
to access, via it's logon and password stuff, the "command line stuff"
of MLS, right? This is my impression of what my wife has since she uses
Hyperterminal both at work (network) and at home (dialup).

> 
> So with that lengthy background (if you're still reading), if your
wife 
> is using hyperterminal she's not using TCP/IP so she can't use telnet
or 
> ssh.  She can use minicom.  There might also be "command line"
versions 
> of minicom (which is screen oriented like vi) or you can set up the 
> command line and scripts to dial numbers for you and so on.  But
minicom 
> adds modem setup stuff, dialing directory, and so on, so screen 
> orientation makes it a little more friendly.
> </geek stuff>
> 

Thanks for the geek stuff.  I'm a little bit more knowledgeable now, and
that'll make me more dangerous.

Kevin