Send a file over serial port with XMODEM protocol

Question

I need to send a small file over serial port (actually /dev/ttyUSB0, there is a usb-to-serual converter attached to the port). The operation needs to be scriptable i.e. non-interactive.

Here is what I have tried:

• minicom - works correctly, but is interactive. --script=SCRIPT option looks promising, but I have no idea how to write the script.
• sx - non-interactive, but freezes, probably because I did not specify baud rate and byte format (stop bits, parity, data bits).

What are my options?

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EDIT1: stty + sx

Still no luck, while minicom with 38400 8N1 sends the file correctly. I am doing

sudo stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 38400 cs8 -parenb -cstopb -ixoff
sx ~/test_signals/ones.bin -vvvvvvvvvvvv

sx just freezes. Here is the output:

vorac@laptop:~/projects/megaboot$ sx ~/test_signals/ones.bin -vvvvvvvvvvvv
sx 0.12.21rc

mode:1
Sending /home/vorac/test_signals/ones.bin, 7 blocks: Give your local XMODEM receive command now.
wctx:file length=1000
                     Calling read: alarm=60  Readnum=128 

And just stays there. The receiver is using the short 1-byte checksum method, indicated by sending a NACK at the beginning of the file, instead of the 2-byte crc, which would be indicated by sending a 'C'. Maybe this is unsupported by cx?

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EDIT2: cu + stty + sx

To avoid reading the exhaustive documentation on cu, I copied the command from this article. Still no luck.

vorac@laptop:~$ sudo cu -l /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 38400
cu: open (/dev/ttyUSB0): Permission denied
cu: /dev/ttyUSB0: Line in use
vorac@laptop:~$ groups vorac
vorac : vorac adm dialout cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare wireshark

Answer 1

An xmodem transition secceed here. After input/output redirection (example refs) as Wouter Verhelst suggested is added, and based on your experience. Luckyly, I send an bin firmware on linux with 2 commands.

$ sudo stty -F /dev/ttyUSB1 9600 cs8 -parenb -cstopb -ixoff
$ sudo stty -F /dev/ttyUSB1
speed 9600 baud; line = 0;
-brkint -imaxbel

$ sx fw.bin < /dev/ttyUSB1 > /dev/ttyUSB1

Answer 2

sx doesn't talk to serial ports by itself; it communicates over stdout. You need to redirect the output for it to do anything useful.

Personally, I find it easiest to use cu to set up the serial connection, run whatever is needed on the remote end to start receiving data with *MODEM, and then use cu's escape codes to run sx locally. You can do this with ~$sx (followed by whatever options you want to pass to sx) as the escape sequence.

Do note, though, that cu recognizes escape sequences only at the start of a line.

EDIT: The 'line in use' message means something else is using the serial port. Try running fuser /dev/ttyUSB0 to figure out what it is, and kill it. Alternatively, you can pull the USB serial convertor from the USB port and plug it in again; that will certainly kill whatever it is that is hogging your serial port. After that, your cu line should just work.

If even that doesn't work, you may have a stale lock file in /var/lock. That's rather unlikely, though, unless you used kill -9 on some previous tool.

Answer 3

You don't set the baud rate etc with sx.

You do that with stty. You probably also want to disable xon/xoff for xmodem just in case there are any XON or XOFF bytes in the file you are sending, so use the -ixon option.

e.g. for 115200,n,8,1 you would use:

stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 cs8 -parenb -cstopb -ixon

See man stty for more details.

Answer 4

Dirty hack:

1. Invoke minicom
2. Do necessary configurations and transfer some arbitary data w/ minicom
3. When data transfer is going on properly in minicom, run stty -aF /dev/ttyUSB0 and copy the output (A)
4. Disconnect, power off everything
5. Power on everything and connect everything
6. Copy the output (B)
7. Make a diff between B and A (recommendation: Meld)
8. Invoke stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 <SOME CONFIG> and stty -aF /dev/ttyUSB0 until you manage to make the output of the latter exactly the same as A. You don't have to care about what the things in A mean at all.
9. Now you may sx

Answer 5

can't you just do something like

$ picocom -b 115000 /dev/ttyUSB0 
// 2nd term
$ cat file > /dev/ttyUSB0