I’m trying to connect to serial devices remotely over a LAN and I’m not sure which solutions are the most reliable or easy to set up. I’m hoping to find some recommendations for hardware, software, or network tools that work well for serial over LAN. If anyone has experience with this or suggestions for the best approaches, I’d really appreciate the help. Thanks in advance!
Alright, so you want to boss your serial devices around from across the LAN, eh? Classic “my cables aren’t long enough” situation. There’s a couple of no-nonsense ways to make serial-over-LAN happen without wanting to toss your gear out the window.
Hardware approach: The crowd-pleaser is a Serial Device Server (also called a serial-to-Ethernet adapter). You plug the old-school RS232/485 thing into one end, Ethernet on the other, and voilà – your dinosaur can now moonlight as an IoT device. Brands like StarTech, Moxa, and Lantronix are solid, just don’t expect them to be super cheap. They’re reliable as heck, though, and setup is usually “set IP, configure port, forget it.”
Software angle: If you’ve got a PC hanging next to your serial-connected gizmos, save your cash and use software to bridge COM to LAN. Take a look at Serial to Ethernet Connector – runs on Windows and Linux, lets you create virtual serial ports on your remote machine and redirect all the traffic over TCP/IP like magic. Super handy, particularly if you need to connect multiple clients or devices at once.
Nerdy bonus: If you want more brain-numbing details about what makes this work, peep guides like streamlining your remote serial device access – lays out how serial data tunnels through your network without you needing a degree in arcane networking rituals.
TL;DR Version:
- Hardware device server ($$ but plug-n-play)
- Serial over LAN software (budget-friendly, flexible, easy to set up)
- Don’t even try rolling your own unless you really like suffering
Set it up right, and you’ll control your serial stuff from the other side of the building (or world) without even getting out of your chair. Trust me, your future self will thank you, especially when you don’t have to untangle fifty feet of DB9 every maintenance cycle.
Not to rain on @boswandelaar’s parade, but the whole “just buy a serial device server and forget it” is a bit oversimplified unless you’ve got deep pockets. Yeah, those things work, but try convincing your boss to buy four of them plus a backup, and you’ll get that “do we REALLY need this??” email chain from finance.
If you actually care about quick setup AND long-term flexibility (like future-proofing if your network changes), I generally lean toward software-based approaches—but NOT just slapping a PC next to every serial gadget. That’s messy and often just as expensive if you factor in old hardware, power, Windows updates, and random crap like COM port collisions. Instead, virtual serial port solutions do exist, and they can be way more elegant.
Case in point—Serial to Ethernet Connector. This app is pretty much plug-and-play on WIN/LINUX, and you don’t have to worry about kernel modules or compiling nonsense. It lets you share a real serial port over LAN (or even WAN), and connect to it from anywhere as a virtual COM port—seriously, it tricks your apps into thinking the remote port is just local hardware. Massive win when dealing with legacy equipment you’re not allowed to replace.
Honestly, SSH tunneling + ser2net is a nerdy, cheap alternative if you live and breathe config files, but expect to waste an afternoon on permissions and weird USB-serial quirks. Also, WiFi-based “serial dongles” exist but, in my experience, drop out waaay too much if you need reliability.
My two cents: if you want reliability AND don’t want to solder cables, go for a dedicated software solution like Serial to Ethernet Connector. And if you want to try it, check out this link for a super intuitive setup: Start connecting serial devices to your network today. Way less long-term pain than hunting down rogue hardware or playing cable management whack-a-mole.
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Let’s cut through the cable clutter and get real: accessing serial devices over LAN isn’t rocket science, but the “best” method depends a lot on your tolerance for upfront cost, complexity, and ongoing maintenance headaches. Sure, @caminantenocturno is all-in on hardware device servers like those from Moxa or StarTech. They’re bulletproof, but they’ll also have your credit card crying, and God help you if you need to scale or troubleshoot weird network edge cases.
@boswandelaar makes a strong pitch for the software route. Serial to Ethernet Connector deserves a close look—it’s as close to plug-and-play as this stuff gets, and it absolutely nails the “legacy app sees a remote serial port as a COM port” scenario. Setting this up takes minutes and works across Windows and Linux. Plus, it doesn’t require babying headless machines next to your rack. The real magic is that you can centralize control and scale up without a hardware hockey puck for every device.
Quick and dirty rundown on Serial to Ethernet Connector:
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Pros:
- Super user-friendly; minimal head-banging to set up
- Cross-platform (major win)
- Tricksy enough to fool stubborn apps
- Far more cost-effective if you’ve got a bunch of devices
- Lets you punch through firewalls & WAN if needed
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Cons:
- Not free (but cheaper than hardware, often)
- Needs a host machine to be on and not crash out
- Some pro features locked behind paywall (trial won’t last forever)
Want competitors? Sure. VSPE is an option if you like Windows-only pain, and TCP/Com gets occasional love, though it feels like stepping back into Win95 sometimes. For the bare-bones, super-nerd set, ser2net + SSH tunneling works, but if uptime and reliability are critical, random config file voodoo won’t thrill your boss—or you, at 3 a.m.
Wild suggestion if you like hacking: some Raspberry Pi models with USB-serial adapters plus ser2net or Socat can sub as hardware servers. Cheap, but power/network management is on you, and you’ll be explaining odd reboots forever.
Bottom line: commercial software like Serial to Ethernet Connector is the least stressful balance of cost, speed, and future-proofing. When you’re untangling a data center’s worth of ancient serial doodads later, you’ll thank yourself for not going full Frankenstein with wires or ultra-barebones open source. But hey—if your setup is one-and-done, and the budget’s there, a dedicated hardware box will always win the “set and forget” race. Flip a coin… or reconsider if you absolutely need to babysit these relics much longer.