Using Beaglebone RS232 TTL cape with Beaglebone black

French Fries

French Fries

Dear all,

This post is part of my FreeBSD admin station paper,
but as it is about the Beaglebone black, I prefer to post here.

I purchased years ago a dozen of RS232 capes for the BeagleBone Black.

Here is the model:
http://elinux.org/BeagleBone_TTL-RS232_Micro_Cape

Documentation is available here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_mUWEFLprKzaQKn_pY9O2WO33k4wlFKaatJ2VKxDUS0/edit

At first, I thought it was plug and play, but it isn't.
Apparently, there is a need to build an overlay.
I could not use the CAP alone, just setting:

/boot/loader.conf
Code: 
boot_multicons="YES"
boot_serial="YES"
comconsole_speed="115200"
console="comconsole"

The cap is configured for UART0.
Do you know what need to be done to activate serial console (receiver) on this cape?

Kind regards,
French Fries
 
Apparently, getty is configured with 3 wire protocol:
ps aux:
root 687 0.0 0.4 6124 1812 u0 Is+ 10:26 0:00.09 /usr/libexec/getty 3wire ttyu0
 
Don't reply my post, I only need to set:
edit /etc/ttys
ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty std.115200" vt100 on insecure

Works like a charm!
 
In fact, it does not work "like a charm".

On host, it is configured with:
ttyu0 "/usr/libexec/getty std.115200" vt100 on insecure

On guest, I connect using:
cu -l /dev/ttyU0 -s 115200

Although I can see the whole boot log, I cannot type on the keyboard.
It displays "Connected" and that's all.

i really don't know how to debug this.
 
I use a FTDI to USB serial converter (3wire) for connecting to my BBB and perhaps the following does not apply to your case.

I connect the client (macOS) using: sudo cu -s 115200 --nostop -l /dev/tty.usbserial-00000000

Once I see Connected. in my terminal, I need to press <Enter> in order to come to the login prompt.
 
I can login but see no output:
login:

FreeBSD/arm (beaglebone) (ttyu0)

login: d-questions/
FreeBSD Forums: https://forums.FreeBSD.org/

Documents installed with the system are in the /usr/local/share/doc/freebsd/
directory, or can be installed later with: pkg install en-freebsd-doc
For other languages, replace "en" with a language code like de or fr.

Show the version of FreeBSD installed: freebsd-version ; uname -a
Please include that output and any error messages when posting questions.
Introduction to manual pages: man man
FreeBSD directory layout: man hier

Edit /etc/motd to change this login announcement.
 
Understood ... Only root can login.
user : root
password: *****
Works very well.

Now the problem is that user "my_user" does not have sufficient rights.

Need to add:
pw group mod dialer -m my_user

groups my_user
my_user wheel tty dialer

Then my_user can connect on the target system,
su my_user
cu -l /dev/cuaU0 -s 115200

but from the moment I connect the screen is completely blank.
 
The same happens from Debian client minicom instead of FreeBSD cu.

A short summary:

Machine A (client) ==========> Machine B (target)
user root (to simplify)
Code: 
cu -l /dev/cuaU0 -s 115200
Then machine B is asking for user/password.
I can connect using root but not using my_user.

On machine B,
Code: 
groups my_user
my_user wheel tty dialer

on machine B, connection is authenticated, but nothing is displayed beyond the usual greatings.

I suspect that my_user should be part of some other group to allow dialin.
 
Any idea?
I suspect that Group membership is needed on GPIO but I don't know how to debug.

I am going to try OpenBSD to see if a non-root account can connect on serial.
 
I just checked non-superuser login on the serial console to my Beaglebone Black, and it does simply work. Since it is not very clear, what exactly you are doing, I give the details of my working setup here.

My BBB is running FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT (BEAGLEBONE) #0 r322787: Tue Aug 22 20:10:12 UTC 2017

Via ssh(1) as user root, I created the normal user rolf:
# pw useradd -n rolf -c "Rolf" -m -s /bin/csh

Then I assigned a password to user rolf:
# passwd rolf

Now, on the serial console:
Code: 
Sat Aug 26 10:28:58 BRT 2017

FreeBSD/arm (CyStat-BBB) (ttyu0)

login: rolf
Password:
Last login: Sat Aug 26 10:24:05 on ttyu0
FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT (BEAGLEBONE) #0 r322787: Tue Aug 22 20:10:12 UTC 2017
If you write part of a filename in tcsh,
pressing TAB will show you the available choices when there
is more than one, or complete the filename if there's only one match.
rolf@CyStat-BBB:~ % ls -l /
total 5229
-r--r--r--   1 root  wheel     6192 Feb 10  2017 COPYRIGHT
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  wheel      512 Feb 18  2017 back
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1024 Aug 22 17:10 bin
drwxr-xr-x   9 root  wheel     1024 Aug 26 10:28 boot
dr-xr-xr-x  11 root  wheel      512 Aug 26 10:28 dev
-rw-------   1 root  wheel     4096 Aug 26 10:28 entropy
drwxr-xr-x  27 root  wheel     2560 Aug 26 10:24 etc
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel      512 Aug 26 01:24 home
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel     1536 Aug 22 17:10 lib
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel      512 Aug 22 17:10 libexec
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  wheel      512 Feb 10  2017 media
drwxr-xr-x  17 root  wheel     1024 Aug 15 10:15 mnt
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel      512 Feb 10  2017 proc
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     2560 Aug 22 17:10 rescue
drwxr-xr-x  11 root  wheel      512 Aug 26 10:28 root
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     2560 Aug 22 17:11 sbin
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel       11 Feb 10  2017 sys -> usr/src/sys
drwxrwxrwt   6 root  wheel      144 Aug 26 10:28 tmp
drwxr-xr-x  16 root  wheel      512 Aug 26 01:24 usr
drwxr-xr-x  24 root  wheel      512 Aug 26 10:28 var
rolf@CyStat-BBB:~ %
The user rolf can do via the serial console everything what would be allowed by any other means of login, e.g. via ssh.

The Beaglebone Black is connected to a macOS computer using a FTDI to USB serial converter (s. attached photo).

BBBSerialConn.jpg

No configuration is needed on the Beaglebone Black (target) side, and as a matter of fact, I never touched any tty settings.

On the Mac (client) side, the only difficulty is too find out the identifier of the USB/tty device:
Code: 
$ ls -l /dev/tty.*
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   20,   2 26 Aug 09:40 /dev/tty.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   20,   4 26 Aug 09:40 /dev/tty.Rolf-WirelessiAP
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   20,   0 26 Aug 10:40 /dev/tty.usbserial-00000000
Here it is /dev/tty.usbserial-00000000, and even as it got rw set for everybody, the macOS 12 does allow only the superuser attaching a terminal to it, therefore, I need to use sudo on the client side for establishing the serial connection:
sudo cu -s 115200 --nostop -l /dev/tty.usbserial-00000000
 
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