Network Serial Concentrators

Digi EtherLite serial concentrators offer easy 10/100Base-T Ethernet connectivity across a variety of operating systems. Linux drivers have been added to the EtherLite line of network serial concentrators, enabling serial port connectivity under the popular Linux operating system. Serial concentrators connect terminals, modems, and microcomputers over serial lines to local area networks (LANs) or wide area networks (WANs). Providing network access to terminals, printers, and computers that don't have built-in network support, serial concentrators provide the inter-network intelligence that is not available in the connected devices.

The serial concentrators simplify the process of adding RS-232, 6 RS-422, and RS-485 serial ports to the network by combining the control and performance of local ports with the convenience of an Ethernet connection. As the ports are real serial devices, they aren't weighed down by complex network terminal server overhead. The result is a much simpler configuration, less Ethernet congestion, and a much lower cost per port when compared to conventional Ethernet terminal servers.

Traffic from all 2, 8, 16 or 32 EtherLite ports is serviced by a single TCP/IP session, compared to the conventional one-session-per-port method. The benefit is lower overhead at the host, and less traffic on Ethernet. EtherLite serial ports appear as local TTYs under UNIX and as native COM ports under Windows NT. These locally-administered, full "hardware-style" ports allow greater control than standard serial concentrator ports.

The Linux driver for EtherLite runs on kernel version 2.2 or higher and is supported on the following distributions or newer: RedHat 6.0, Caldera OpenLinux 2.3, and SuSE Linux 6.3.

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