ser2sock - Serial to Socket Redirector

The ser2sock utility allows sharing of a serial device over a TCP/IP network. It also supports encryption and authentication via OpenSSL.

If you need Windows support: check out LuckyMallari's com-socket-bridge.

05/04/14 - Version 1.4.5 adds better support for running more than one copy at a time on Linux system. init.d script rewritten to provide easy configuration for multiple instantiations and modifications to ser2sock.c to correct PID file creation/deletion behavior consistent with running more than one instantiation.

Installation

NOTE: The OpenSSL dev package is needed in order to compile with SSL support.

./configure
make
sudo cp ser2sock /usr/local/bin/
sudo cp -R etc/ser2sock /etc/
Make changes to /etc/ser2sock/ser2sock.conf as needed.
sudo cp init/ser2sock /etc/init.d/
sudo update-rc.d ser2sock defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/ser2sock start
To run more than one instantiation follow instructions in the init/ser2sock script

Installation (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt-get install build-essential autotools-dev devscripts
debuild -i -us -uc -b
sudo dpkg -i ../ser2sock*.deb
sudo update-rc.d ser2sock defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/ser2sock start
To run more than one instantiation follow instructions in the /etc/init.d/ser2sock script

Installation (Mac OS X)

./configure
make
mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
cp ser2sock /usr/local/bin
sudo cp -R etc/ser2sock /etc/
Change the 'device' setting in /etc/ser2sock/ser2sock.conf.
cp init/ser2sock.plist /System/Library/LaunchAgents/
cd ~
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchAgents/ser2sock.plist
launchctl start ser2sock

Usage

Usage: ./ser2sock -p <socket listen port> -s <serial port dev>

  -h, -help                 display this help and exit
  -f <config pathname>      override config file pathname
  -p port                   socket port to listen on
  -s <serial device>        serial device; ex /dev/ttyUSB0
options
  -i IP                     bind to a specific ip address; default is ALL
  -b baudrate               set baud rate; defaults to 9600
  -d                        daemonize
  -0                        raw device mode - no info messages
  -t                        send terminal init string
  -P <PID file pathname>    overide default PID file pathname. (for use by init.d script)
  -g                        debug level 0-3
  -c                        keep incoming connections when a serial device is disconnected
  -w milliseconds           delay between attempts to open a serial device (5000)
  -e                        use SSL to encrypt the connection

Using with more than one serial port (multiple daemon)

Follow basic installation instructions above.
Make an additional copy of the /etc/init.d/ser2sock script for each serial port you wish to use but use a unique filename such as /etc/init.d/ser2sock.1 , ser2sock.2 , etc.
Edit each file and change the "Provides:" line to use the same name that you gave the file: ser2sock.1 (for example)
Create a new configuration file in /etc/ser2sock using the same name that you gave the init.d script for the corresponding port: ser2sock.1.conf (example)
Edit each of those files to reflect the serial device you are using and the network port it can be accessed through. Make sure it's a different port from the other instantiations and unused by anything else.
For each new port do: sudo update-rc.d <script filename> defaults
For each new port do: sudo /ect/init.d/<script filename> start

Authentication via SSL

In addition to supporting cleartext TCP/IP connections, ser2sock also supports SSL authentication and encryption as of v1.4.0.

There are three pieces you need to make this work.

CA certificate - Certificate Authority that is used to authorize clients against.
Server-side certificate - The certificate used by ser2sock, signed by the CA.
Client-side certificate - The certificate used by clients of ser2sock, also signed by the CA.

Generating the Certificates

Create the CA certificate and key: openssl req -out ca.pem -new -x509

Generate the Server key: openssl genrsa -out server.key 2048

Generate a signing request for the Server: openssl req -key server.key -new -out server.req

Sign the server's request:

echo "00" > ca.srl
openssl x509 -req -in server.req -CA ca.pem -CAkey privkey.pem -CAserial ca.srl -out server.pem

Generate the Client key: openssl genrsa -out client.key 2048

Generate a signing request for the Client: openssl req -key client.key -new -out client.req

Sign the client's request: openssl x509 -req -in client.req -CA ca.pem -CAkey privkey.pem -CAserial ca.srl -out client.pem

Now all you have to do is enable encryption in the configuration, update your certificate paths, and restart the service.

Testing the SSL Certificates

After the certificates have been generated and ser2sock restarted you can verify that the certificates work with OpenSSL: openssl s_client -connect 127.0.0.1:10000 -cert client.pem -key client.key -CAfile ca.pem

Certificate Revocation

Certificates may be revoked using OpenSSL's CA facility.

Revoke the certificate: openssl ca -config ca.conf -revoke certs/badclient.pem -keyfile certs/privkey.pem -cert certs/ca.pem

Regenerate the CRL: openssl ca -config ca.conf -gencrl -keyfile certs/privkey.pem -cert certs/ca.pem -out ser2sock.crl

Restart ser2sock: killall -HUP ser2sock

nutechsoftware/ser2sock