slattach — attach a network interface to a serial line

Synopsis

slattach [-dehlLmnqv] [-c command] [-p proto] [-s speed] [tty]

Description

Slattach is a tiny little program that can be used to put a normal terminal ("serial") line into one of several "network" modes, thus allowing you to use it for point-to-point links to other computers.

Options

tty

Path to a serial device like /dev/ttyS*, /dev/cua* or /dev/ptmx to spawn a new pseudo tty.

[-c command]

Execute command when the line is hung up. This can be used to run scripts or re-establish connections when a link goes down.

[-d]

Enable debugging output.  Useful when determining why a given setup doesn't work.

[-h]

Exit when the carrier is lost. This works on both /dev/tty and /dev/cua devices by directly monitoring the carrier status every 15 seconds.

[-v]

Enable verbose output.  Useful in shell scripts.

[-q]

Operate in quiet mode - no messages at all.

[-l]

Create an UUCP-style lockfile for the device in /var/lock.

[-n]

Equivalent to the "mesg n" command.

[-m]

Do not initialize the line into 8 bits raw mode.

[-e]

Exit right after initializing device, instead of waiting for the line to hang up.

[-L]

Enable 3 wire operation. The terminal is moved into CLOCAL mode,  carrier watching is disabled.

[-p proto]

Set a specific kind of protocol to use on the line.  The default is set to cslip, i.e. compressed SLIP.  Other possible values are slip (normal SLIP), adaptive (adaptive CSLIP/SLIP), ppp (Point-to-Point Protocol) and kiss (a protocol used for communicating with AX.25 packet radio terminal node controllers). The special argument tty can be used to put the device back into normal serial operation. Using 'ppp' mode is not normally useful as ppp requires an additional ppp daemon pppd to be active on the line. For kiss connections the axattach program should be used.

[-s speed]

Set a specific line speed, other than the default.

If no arguments are given, the current terminal line (usually: the login device) is used.  Otherwise, an attempt is made to claim the indicated terminal port, lock it, and open it.

Files

/dev/cua* /var/lock/LCK.* /dev/ttyS* /dev/ptmx

Bugs

None known.

See Also

axattach(8), dip(8) pppd(8), sliplogin(8).

Authors

Fred N. van Kempen, <waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org>
Alan Cox, <Alan.Cox@linux.org>
Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.ow.org>
George Shearer, <gshearer@one.net>
Yossi Gottlieb, <yogo@math.tau.ac.il>

Info

2011-12-31 net-tools Linux System Administrator's Manual