USB to Serial Console from MacOS
26th June 2020
Introduction
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.
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>
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.
Really kill this window [y/n]