USB to Serial Console from MacOS

Published: 26th of June 2020

Intro

I recently had to connect to some network equipment via the console port using my trusty USB to serial adapter. This is just a quick post outlining the process on MacOS.

Dude! Where's My Console?

Firstly plug in your USB-to-Serial and find its location under the /dev/ directory.

cmd 
ls -la /dev/ | grep -i usb

# output
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   18,   3 26 Jun 09:17 /dev/cu.usbserial-FTDCP0VI
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   18,   2 26 Jun 09:17 /dev/tty.usbserial-FTDCP0VI

We are looking for the tty device. From the output above you can see that the device is located at /dev/tty.usbserial-FTDCP0VI

Connecting 3..2..1

The screen command can be used to connect to the USB to serial device. The command structure is screen <device-path> <console-speed>

cmd 
screen /dev/tty.usbserial-FTDCP0VI 9600

# Now connected to device
router1>

Voila! We are connected to our network device via the console port.

GTFO

To exit the screen session use the keyboard combination CTRL + a then k.
Press y at the prompt.

cmd 
Really kill this window [y/n]

Tags

shell networking screen