Serialport Monitor

The serial port monitor allows you to monitor devices attached to local communication ports. Actually, this is not limited to serial (RS232) devices - devices connected via e.g. LPT ports can also be monitored as long as the device provides a proper interface to the port device.

For example - uses for the serial port monitor may be interfacing to data loggers, “strange” log sources (e.g. PBX call logs) or out-of-band log retrieval (e.g. setting a router to log to the serial port instead to the network and then picking the data from that serial line). Out-of-band log retrieval can also be used to hide the fact that logging is actually taking place.

The serial port monitor works as follows: it listens to the configured port. With each received character, it checks if a configured “message end sequence” is received. If it is not it continues listening until either another character is received or a timeout occurs.

If either the “message end sequence” is received or the timeout occurred, the message is considered to be complete. In this case, an event is generated and that event is scheduled for processing.

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  • Service - Serialport Monitor*

Timeout Limit

File Configuration field:

nTimeOutLimit

Description:

This is the maximum amount of time the service waits to receive the “message end characters” from the attached device.

How the message is ended

File Configuration field:

szMessageEnd

Description:

This is the sequence that, when received, denotes the end of the message. Most often, this is either

"\r\n" or "\n" ("\r" represents a CR characters,
"\n" represents a LF character).

Which Port do you want to monitor

File Configuration field:

szPortName

Description:

This is the port that the device is attached to. Most often, this is either COM1: or COM2:. All locally-existing ports can be used. When working locally, the configuration program enumerates the locally available ports. This can be one of the following values:

 1. MSFAX
 2. COM1
 3. COM2
 4. COM3
 5. COM4
 6. FILE
 7. LPT1
 8. LPT2
 9. LPT3
10. AVMISDN1
11. AVMISDN2
12. AVMISDN3
13. AVMISDN4
14. AVMISDN5
15. AVMISDN6
16. AVMISDN7
17. AVMISDN8
18. AVMISDN9

Port Settings

Bits per Seconds

File Configuration field:

nBps

Description:

Bits per second can be 110 and go up to 256000, by default 57600 is selected.

Data bits

File Configuration field:

nDatabits

Description:

Databits define the number of bits in the bytes transmitted and received.

Parity

File Configuration field:

nParity

Description:

With Parity you can configure the Parity scheme to be used. This can be one of the following values:

1. Even
2. Mark
3. No parity
4. Odd
5. Space

Stop bits

File Configuration field:

nStopbits

Description:

You can configure the Number of stop bits to be used. This member can be one of the following values:

1. 1 stop bit
2. 1.5 stop bits
3. 2 stop bits

DTR Control Flow

File Configuration field:

nDtsControl

Description:

DTR (data-terminal-ready) flow control. This member can be one of the following values:

1. DTR_CONTROL_DISABLE - Disables the DTR line when the device
   is opened and leaves it disabled.
2. DTR_CONTROL_ENABLE - Enables the DTR line when the device
   is opened and leaves it on
3. DTR_CONTROL_HANDSHAKE - Enables DTR handshaking.

RTS Control Flow

File Configuration field:

nRtsControl

Description:

RTS (request-to-send) flow control. This member can be one of the following values:

1. RTS_CONTROL_DISABLE - Disables the RTS line when the device
   is opened and leaves it disabled.
2. RTS_CONTROL_ENABLE - Enables the RTS line when the device
   is opened and leaves it on.
3. RTS_CONTROL_HANDSHAKE - Enables RTS handshaking. The driver
   raises the RTS line when the "type-ahead" (input) buffer is
   less than one-half full and lowers the RTS line when the
   buffer is more than three-quarters full.
4. RTS_CONTROL_TOGGLE - Specifies that the RTS line will be high
   if bytes are available for transmission. After all buffered
   bytes have been sent, the RTS line will be low.

General Values (Common settings for most services)

Syslog Facility

File Configuration field:

nSyslogFacility

Description:

The syslog facility to be assigned to events created by this service. Most useful if the message is to forward to a Syslog server.

Syslog Priority

File Configuration field:

nSyslogPriority

Description:

The Syslog priority to be assigned to events created by this service. Most useful if the message is to forward to a Syslog server.

Syslog Tag Value

File Configuration field:

szSyslogTagValue

Description:

The Syslog tag value to be assigned to events created by this service. Most useful if the message is to forward to a Syslog server.

Resource ID

File Configuration field:

szResource

Description:

The resource id to be assigned to events created by this service. Most useful if the message is to forward to a Syslog server.

RuleSet to Use

File Configuration field:

szRuleSetName

Description:

Name of the ruleset to be used for this service. The RuleSet name must be a valid RuleSet.