The /sys filesystem should contain plenty information for your quest. My system (2.6.32-40-generic #87-Ubuntu) suggests:
/sys/class/tty
Which gives you descriptions of all TTY devices known to the system. A trimmed down example:
# ll /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/ttyUSB0/tty/ttyUSB0/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:44 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB1 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.3/2-1.3:1.0/ttyUSB1/tty/ttyUSB1/
Following one of these links:
# ll /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/
insgesamt 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 ../
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2012-03-28 20:49 dev
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 device -> ../../../ttyUSB0/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:49 power/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 subsystem -> ../../../../../../../../../../class/tty/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2012-03-28 20:43 uevent
Here the dev file contains this information:
# cat /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/dev
188:0
This is the major/minor node. These can be searched in the /dev directory to get user-friendly names:
# ll -R /dev |grep "188, *0"
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2012-03-28 20:44 ttyUSB0
The /sys/class/tty dir contains all TTY devices but you might want to exclude those pesky virtual terminals and pseudo terminals. I suggest you examine only those which have a device/driver entry:
# ll /sys/class/tty/*/device/driver
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS0/device/driver -> ../../../bus/pnp/drivers/serial/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS1/device/driver -> ../../../bus/pnp/drivers/serial/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS2/device/driver -> ../../../bus/platform/drivers/serial8250/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS3/device/driver -> ../../../bus/platform/drivers/serial8250/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/device/driver -> ../../../../../../../../bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 21:15 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB1/device/driver -> ../../../../../../../../bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/
Answer from A.H. on Stack OverflowThe /sys filesystem should contain plenty information for your quest. My system (2.6.32-40-generic #87-Ubuntu) suggests:
/sys/class/tty
Which gives you descriptions of all TTY devices known to the system. A trimmed down example:
# ll /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/ttyUSB0/tty/ttyUSB0/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:44 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB1 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.3/2-1.3:1.0/ttyUSB1/tty/ttyUSB1/
Following one of these links:
# ll /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/
insgesamt 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 ../
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2012-03-28 20:49 dev
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 device -> ../../../ttyUSB0/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:49 power/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 subsystem -> ../../../../../../../../../../class/tty/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2012-03-28 20:43 uevent
Here the dev file contains this information:
# cat /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/dev
188:0
This is the major/minor node. These can be searched in the /dev directory to get user-friendly names:
# ll -R /dev |grep "188, *0"
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2012-03-28 20:44 ttyUSB0
The /sys/class/tty dir contains all TTY devices but you might want to exclude those pesky virtual terminals and pseudo terminals. I suggest you examine only those which have a device/driver entry:
# ll /sys/class/tty/*/device/driver
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS0/device/driver -> ../../../bus/pnp/drivers/serial/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS1/device/driver -> ../../../bus/pnp/drivers/serial/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS2/device/driver -> ../../../bus/platform/drivers/serial8250/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 19:07 /sys/class/tty/ttyS3/device/driver -> ../../../bus/platform/drivers/serial8250/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 20:43 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB0/device/driver -> ../../../../../../../../bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2012-03-28 21:15 /sys/class/tty/ttyUSB1/device/driver -> ../../../../../../../../bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/
In recent kernels (not sure since when) you can list the contents of /dev/serial to get a list of the serial ports on your system. They are actually symlinks pointing to the correct /dev/ node:
flu0@laptop:~$ ls /dev/serial/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2011-07-20 17:12 by-id/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2011-07-20 17:12 by-path/
flu0@laptop:~$ ls /dev/serial/by-id/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2011-07-20 17:12 usb-Prolific_Technology_Inc._USB-Serial_Controller-if00-port0 -> ../../ttyUSB0
flu0@laptop:~$ ls /dev/serial/by-path/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2011-07-20 17:12 pci-0000:00:0b.0-usb-0:3:1.0-port0 -> ../../ttyUSB0
This is a USB-Serial adapter, as you can see. Note that when there are no serial ports on the system, the /dev/serial/ directory does not exists. Hope this helps :).
Videos
Here is a quick method . After plugging in USB cable, you just issue:
dmesg | grep tty
This will output the tty devices detected by kernel, in the order that they were detected and with a time stamp.
Two options beside journalctl -k or dmesg from the other answer
udevmonitor- Launch
sudo udevadm monitor -u - Then plug or unplug the device.
- Launch
diffof/dev/listingStore list of devices before plugging in Android
ls /dev/ > dev_list_1.txtThen run this after you plug it
ls /dev/ | diff --suppress-common-lines -y - dev_list_1.txtThe resulted output should be something like this:
libmtp-2-1.2 < sdb < serial < sg2 < ttyACM0 <Or monitor for change
watch "ls /dev/ | diff --suppress-common-lines -y - dev_list_1.txt"
I'm not quite certain what you're asking. You mention 'port' several times, but then in your example, you say the answer is /dev/ttyUSB0, which is a device dev path, not a port. So this answer is about finding the dev path for each device.
Below is a quick and dirty script which walks through devices in /sys looking for USB devices with a ID_SERIAL attribute. Typically only real USB devices will have this attribute, and so we can filter with it. If we don't, you'll see a lot of things in the list that aren't physical devices.
#!/bin/bash
for sysdevpath in $(find /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb*/ -name dev); do
(
syspath="${sysdevpath%/dev}"
devname="$(udevadm info -q name -p $syspath)"
[[ "$devname" == "bus/"* ]] && exit
eval "$(udevadm info -q property --export -p $syspath)"
[[ -z "$ID_SERIAL" ]] && exit
echo "/dev/$devname - $ID_SERIAL"
)
done
On my system, this results in the following:
/dev/ttyACM0 - LG_Electronics_Inc._LGE_Android_Phone_VS930_4G-991c470
/dev/sdb - Lexar_USB_Flash_Drive_AA26MYU15PJ5QFCL-0:0
/dev/sdb1 - Lexar_USB_Flash_Drive_AA26MYU15PJ5QFCL-0:0
/dev/input/event5 - Logitech_USB_Receiver
/dev/input/mouse1 - Logitech_USB_Receiver
/dev/input/event2 - Razer_Razer_Diamondback_3G
/dev/input/mouse0 - Razer_Razer_Diamondback_3G
/dev/input/event3 - Logitech_HID_compliant_keyboard
/dev/input/event4 - Logitech_HID_compliant_keyboard
Explanation:
find /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb*/ -name dev
Devices which show up in /dev have a dev file in their /sys directory. So we search for directories matching this criteria.
syspath="${sysdevpath%/dev}"
We want the directory path, so we strip off /dev.
devname="$(udevadm info -q name -p $syspath)"
This gives us the path in /dev that corresponds to this /sys device.
[[ "$devname" == "bus/"* ]] && exit
This filters out things which aren't actual devices. Otherwise you'll get things like USB controllers & hubs. The exit exits the subshell, which flows to the next iteration of the loop.
eval "$(udevadm info -q property --export -p $syspath)"
The udevadm info -q property --export command lists all the device properties in a format that can be parsed by the shell into variables. So we simply call eval on this. This is also the reason why we wrap the code in the parenthesis, so that we use a subshell, and the variables get wiped on each loop.
[[ -z "$ID_SERIAL" ]] && exit
More filtering of things that aren't actual devices.
echo "/dev/$devname - $ID_SERIAL"
I hope you know what this line does :-)
You can use this command to explore your device if connected to usb0:
udevadm info -a -p $(udevadm info -q path -n /dev/ttyUSB0)
First check with dmesg | grep tty if system recognize your adapter.
Then try to run minicom with sudo minicom -s, go to "Serial port setup" and change the first line to /dev/ttyUSB0.
Don't forget to save config as default with "Save setup as dfl". It works for me on Ubuntu 11.04 on VirtualBox.
You will need to set the permissions every time you plug the converter in. I use PuTTY to connect. In order to do so, I have created a little Bash script to sort out the permissions and launch PuTTY:
#!/bin/bash
sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyUSB0
putty
P.S. I would never recommend that permissions are set to 777.
I think it's this command:
dmesg | grep tty
Running that on my own Linux box (which only has 1 Serial port) produces a single ttyS0 output line. Try it on your own, you will see what I mean.
See which UARTs where detected in /proc/tty/driver/serial. A line with uart:unknown means: nothing detected (and likely not existent).
# cat /proc/tty/driver/serial
serinfo:1.0 driver revision:
0: uart:16550A port:000003F8 irq:4 tx:0 rx:0
1: uart:16550A port:000002F8 irq:3 tx:111780 rx:1321 RTS|DTR|DSR
2: uart:unknown port:000003E8 irq:4
3: uart:unknown port:000002E8 irq:3
If you see any of the CTS, DSR, (D)CD or RI flags (these are input signals), like on UART no. 1 above, you can even be pretty sure that there actually is something connected and driving these lines. Same is true for the rx-byte-count.
Seeing a positive tx-byte-count, RTS and/or DTR only reveals that some software accessed the device and ordered it to set those signals or send bytes here, but not if something was listening.
Note: you might see more ports available in hardware than ports reaching the outside of your computer in form of a connector.
Tell mingetty or whatnot to connect to ttyUSB<n> in inittab.
You might have a look at this page, which explains the basics of remote management.
Some servers have integrated out-of-band admin features, like HP iLO, IBM RSA and Dell DRAC, which could interest you as well.
Regarding the serial port solution, this page explains how you can attach a dumb terminal to a linux host, using *getty.
I would not recommend some kind of serial over usb in that case, as it would limit the possibilities. No access to the bios, no access to the bootloader...
You can try to see if your device(s) are registered under /dev/serial/by-id/
ls -l /dev/serial/by-id
These names should be consistent and will point (symlink) to the correct ttyUSBx
Have a look at the sysfs filesystem. An example for my USB serial:
$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 016: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
$ ls -l /sys/bus/usb-serial/devices
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jul 4 17:37 ttyUSB0 -> ../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:02:00.0/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/ttyUSB0
$ $ grep PRODUCT= /sys/bus/usb-serial/devices/ttyUSB0/../uevent
PRODUCT=67b/2303/300
As you can see, ttyUSB0 maps to 067b:2303 on my computer. An other locations worth exploring are /sys/class/tty/. Pay attention to symlinks.
It seems minicom is in fact what I can use simply. I installed it using
sudo apt-get install minicom
and then I use
sudo dmesg | grep tty
to find the correct device, and using
sudo minicom -b 115200 -o -D /dev/ttyUSB0
if your device is /dev/ttyUSB0. You have to specify the baudrate -b 115200, I start it uninitialized -o and specify the device to connect to -D /dev/ttyUSB0.
Nice program is also tio:
tio -b 9600 /dev/ttyUSB0
It is great for Arduino and similar devices with USB, as ESP8266.