Serial and TCP/IP ?

I’ve been using VirtualVP since it was introduced but only with the virtual serial port drivers. I want to setup and use TCP/IP to serial.

In the VVP manual it states that the virtual consoles can be set to either. I’ve been reading the user manual for the Latronix redirector and one of the things is says is that it should not be used with other software that installs virtual com ports.

Finally the question… can I install and use both at the same time? Virtual consoles 1, 2, 3 serial and 4 as TCP/IP?

Any advice on any other part of the setup?

–Dave

If you are using the 1.0.x version of VirtualVP, then yes, you can set up 1,2,3 as virtual serial and 4 as TCP/IP. In the 1.1.x beta version of VirtualVP (which has been pretty stable) the layout was changed so there are simply 4 dedicated virtual serial ports and 4 dedicated TCP/IP ports.

I’m pretty sure I have run the lantronix redirector on the same machince as VirtualVP & the N8VB_vCOM driver. You just need to make sure you pick a truly open com slot for Redirector’s virtual com port.

I’m curious why you want to run virtualVP + Redirector on the same machine though. Why not use the virtual serial and save the extra level of indirection? The TCP/IP was put into VirtualVP primarily for these three reasons: 1) to allow connections from remote PCs, 2) to allow straight TCP/IP connections (VPLive can connect this way), and 3) for older versions of windows that can’t use the N8VB_vCOM driver, but can use a TCP/IP to serial driver. But I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use TCP/IP for some other purpose.

Steve

Basically because I don’t understand the basics of TCP/IP (Things I’ve found through Google ASSUME you know how TCP/IP works to start with and didn’t help me at all.)

Here is what I assumed. In order to use VVP, drivers for both the serial and TCP/IP have to be installed to use either. I also assumed serial was used on one machine and that TCP/IP had to be used for 1 and 2 above.

Here is what I want to do. Weather PC run VirtualVP, StartWatch, WD, WeatherLink and VPLive and then on my laptop, connected through wireless lan, run WD and VPLive and… if that works I’d like to run VPLive at work or on my laptop if traveling.

I am using the beta BTW and I really hate to show my ignorance but I am freaking lost on the TCP/IP stuff.

?? Dave

Ok, that helps me answer your question. First, what you want to do is possible. But let me give a little background first.

VirtualVP itself isn’t a driver and doesn’t include any drivers. But, it relies on drivers to do what it does. To allow other weather programs to connect to VirtualVP via serial communications (COM ports) requires a virtual serial port driver like N8VB_vCOM. This driver makes connected pairs of serial ports. VirtualVP connects to one end of the pair, the weather program connects to the other end of the pair, and voila, VirtualVP and the program can talk to each other. This type of connection only works with programs that are running on the same computer.

TCP/IP communications is handled by something called WinSock, and that is just part of windows. It’s not a driver you need to install. So VirtualVP can communicate via TCP/IP without anything else needing to be installed. TCP/IP supports communications within the same computer (using “localhost” as the host name), or between two different computers through a nettwork. Now, for another program to be able to talk to VirtualVP using TCP/IP, that program must support TCP/IP communications. Right now, the only weather program that can do that is VPLive. BUT, there are drivers available that can connect to a TCP/IP source (such as VirtualVP) and convert that into serial communications, creating a virtual com port for use by a program that expects a serial connection. So, you could have PC1 running VirtualVP, and then on PC2 you could have Redirector configured to connect to one of VirtualVP’s TCP/IP ports, and create a virtual com port (COM6 for example). Then you could run WeatherDisplay on PC2, configure it to connect to the COM6 port that Redirector made, and then WeatherDisplay on PC2 can communicate with VirtualVP on PC1.

This is how you’d run what you described:

** Weather PC **
Install the N8VB_vCOM driver with its default configuration
Run VirtualVP with all serial and TCP/IP ports enabled
Run WD connected to COM6
Run WeatherLink connected to COM7
Run VPLive connected to COM8
configure StartWatch to monitor Port 5514 (one of VirtualVP’s ports), have it start VirtualVP first, and then have it start the other weather programs when the VirtualVP port becomes responsive (this is the sure way to have the weather programs start after VirtualVP is all done initializing and is ready to serve out the data)

** Laptop on LAN **
Install Lantronix Redirector driver - configure it to connect to WeatherPC port 5511 and map it to COM6 (whicch Redirector will create as a virtual com port)
run WD connected to COM6
run VPLive connected to WeatherPC port 5512

** remote laptop **
Assumes you’ve set up port forwarding in your router at home so that port 5513 is forwarded to the weatherPC, and that you understand the security vulnerabilities this can present. Also strongly suggest you configure VirtualVP with console protection on this port so other people can’t send any commands to your console that change data in the console.
run VPLive connected to your home IP address (the one your ISP assigned to you), port 5513

I don’t recommend the remote scenario unless you understand the security ramnifications, and how to protect against them. Anytime you open any ports up into your LAN for any reason it opens a potential avenue for exploitation. There are other ways to achieve this that are much more secure, although not as “realtime”.

Steve

So in that case does the weatherPC appear to the lantronix software to be the same as a lantronix serial/ethernet server?

I’m not sure if it is the same as a Lantronix serial/ethernet server. My memory was that VirtualVP appears to Lantronix as just some (undefined) kind of TCP/IP server.

Something I left out, but is important is that you need to set the RAW option in Redirector (so it makes no assumptions about the content). This is described in the VirtualVP appendix on configuring Redirector.

This is the only part that I did understand from the beginning. I think. :wink:

It now makes sense to me. Thanks.

Understand the dangers and won’t be doing this. I can remote into the PC or just look at my web page.

Thanks, Steve. I’m going to try setting this up this evening. My biggest reason for wanting to to us TCP/IP is for the monitoring and starting of programs with StartWatch.

–Dave

I’ve been playing with VirtualVP and VPLive today and using TCP/IP. So far I have had VPLive running fine using the TCP/IP connection under W2K to my WD PC, and from my Linux box using Wine to my WD PC. Next step is to get WD running under Wine getting the data from the WD PC.

Steve do you know of any freware serial/TCPIP s/w for Linux? I think I may have found something but have not yet tried it.

Stuart

Some success. I can run VPLive on the Weather PC using either the COM ports or TCP/IP but can’t get VPLive on the laptop to connect via TCP/IP.

I’ve decided to run this way:

Weather PC → StartWatch,ViritualVP feeding WD, WeatherLink, VPLive using Virtual Console COM ports
Laptop → WD in client mode and VPLive using TCP/IP

As stated above I can’t configure the programs to get data via TCP/IP over my lan.

Screen shot below is from the Weather PC’s VirtualVP. I use the drop down arrow to show the choices I have under ‘Address’. The text below is the message I get from the VPL activity log on the laptop.

16:33:55:815 Warning - Connection interrupted, will try to reconnect in 5 minutes
16:34:35:361 Warning - Failed to open archive file (2006-10.wlk)
16:34:37:065 Warning - No response to Wake Up Console (Timed out)
16:34:38:752 Warning - No response to Wake Up Console (Timed out)
16:34:40:440 Warning - No response to Wake Up Console (Timed out)
16:34:42:127 Warning - No response to Wake Up Console (Timed out)

Ok, Steve, I’ll LET you help me one more time. :slight_smile: Then I’m going to give up.

–Dave

Edit. The drop down box closed during the screen cap. It shows 127.0.0.1 and 198.168.0.7


I worked with a user who was trying to get a linux box running a native linux weather app for the VP set it up so that program could get data from VirtualVP running on a separate windows computer. We worked through the issues (he did most of the work) and he did get it running fine. He used a freeware program called remserial to do the TCP/IP to serial translation. Here is the list of steps he sent that got it running:

Assuming you have VirtualVP and the Weather station running on a Windows box, Virtual VP listening on tcp/ip, in my example to 127.0.0.1, port 5515

On the linux box:

  1. Install remserial LPC Computer Consulting - Linux
  2. Read the documentation - carefully!
  3. In terminal window do: remserial -d -r ip-of-host/server -p 5515
    /dev/ptypa &
  4. Your linux weather program can now talk to /dev/ttypa, which will act
    as the weather com port on the (remote) windows host/server

Thats all!

Hope that helps.

Steve
SoftWx

Dave,
I couldn’t access the screen capture for some reason, but here is something to check. In VirtualVP, configure the TCP/IP virtual console you want the laptop VPLive to use so that it uses the 198.168.0.7 address, and in the VPLive configuration tell it to connect via TCP/IP to address 198.168.0.7 and whatever port you decided to use (5511 - 5514 by default).

Another thing to check is that you don’t have the windows firewall or a 3rd party firewall blocking the laptop from connecting to VirtualVP. Opening window’s Network Connections window is a place to start for checking that. It will say Firewalled in the Status if it has windows firewall turned on. You can configure the windows firewall to exempt VirtualVP from being blocked from accepting connections.

Steve

i see there is a new product out now too…a USB to TCP/IP redirector (to share USB devices over a network or the internet…could be usefull (great way to directly share printers))

Steve it was Remserial that I found as well. It works fine connecting to the WD box. My problem is that running VPLive is under Wine and I now need to find out if you can configure Wine to use psuedo tty devices (virtual serial ports) rather than real ones! I’m asking around but I realise this is nothing to do with VPLive etc now!

Stuart

Ok, I get it now. My knowledge of linux and Wine is not sufficient to offer much help on that one. In the meantime, until you find the solution you’re looking for there is a partial solution that might be useful if you are able to get VPLive on Wine connected to VirtualVP using straight TCP/IP. VPLive has an option to create a data.csv file. You can point WD that’s also running on Wine to this file as its input source, and it will get most of the data, and at something very close to realtime. I ran that way for a number of weeks between the time I wrote VPLive and when I got VirtualVP running.

Steve

VPLive was not being blocked on either machine but I turned off both firewalls and set both to the 198 address. No connection.

I had attached the wrong screen cap and had to modify the message so that may have been why you didn’t see it.

Is this warning due to not connecting?
Failed to open archive file (2006-10.wlk)

–Dave

Show me the screen for the vplive configuration. And looking at your first screen, I notice that it’s 192.xxx.xxx.xxx, not 198, so make sure you have the right address typed into VPLive.

The wlk warning is because VPLive is trying (and failing) to find and load the past day’s archive history from the weather link file. You can go into VPLive’s WeatherLink configuration window and blank out the WL data and program locations, and uncheck any boxes to get data or run WL.

Eventually, I will change VPLive to get the archive data from the console. Then the WL stuff will go away.

Steve

:oops: :oops: #-o

I’ve been typing it from memory since about 1 PM and it has been wrong EVERY time. Needless to say it is now connecting and receiving data.

I’m terribly sorry for the bother.

–Dave