Serial Pin-outs

The idea is to connect pairs of systems with 2 serial cables to create a bidirectional link. We would then run a getty over one of the ports on each machine. This would allow us to login to any server if networking breaks.

The following is a list of our servers and how many serial ports they currently have:

• caffeine (1 header)
• natural-flavours (1 on-board)
• artificial-flavours (1 on-board)
• taurine (1 on-board, 1 virtual)
• perpugilliam (2 on-board)
• citric-acid (2 on-board)
• potassium-citrate (2 on-board)
• ascorbic-acid (1 on-board)

We would need the following:

• 3 x Dual PCI Serial Port Card (PCI-2S)
• 6 x Null-modem/Crossover Serial Cables (CB-NM9FF)

Total: $70.53

Pinouts

RS-232 over DB9

Female 5 4 3 2 1 9 8 7 6

Male 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 DCD
2 RXD
3 TXD
4 DTR
5 GND
6 DSR
7 RTS
8 CTS
9 RI

Serial ports on common PC hardware have this pin-out.

RS-232 over 8P8C, Sun

Top of plug 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 RTS
2 DTR
3 TXD
4 GND
5 GND
6 RXD
7 DSR
8 CTS

The Sun Netra, ascorbic-acid, has this pinout.

RS-232 to 8P8C Adapter

DB9	8P8C
1	6
2	1
3	5
4	4
5	2
6	3
7	7
8	8
9	X

The black adapter has this pinout.