Sync serial bridging over Ethernet, was Re: [HECnet] Multi-floor household (DECnet) routing help needed

[Dave McGuire]

On 01/18/2013 02:06 AM, Ian McLaughlin wrote:
What sort of hardware interface would you envision?

Two ports - Sync and Ethernet.   Maybe a couple of status LEDs.

  That sounds good, but I meant what sort of hardware on the sync serial
side.   RS232 with the requisite sync clocks?

What do we need for config?   Local IP address, Remote IP address,
Baud rate (because we'd need to generate clock if I'm not mistaken).

  Yes.   Probably not much more than that.

How do we get parameters in?   Web interface or telnet CLI ?   Maybe
DHCP extra parameters (no need to write a GUI, but some people will
find configuring their DHCP server to serve additional parameters
very difficult).

  If people are using DHCP servers built into consumer-grade networking
equipment, yes. :-(   Maybe a telnet-interfaced CLI would be best.   That
said, though, I've done a very simple HTTP server under FreeRTOS, and it
could be made to do basic CGI stuff.

UDP means not having to worry about master and slave.

  But it brings with it the need to deal with packet ordering somehow.
That can get complicated.   Is it a good trade-off?

                          -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA