Table of contents

Serial Lines for Emulated Systems

All emulated HP3000 and HP9000 models have at least two serial lines (LDev 20 and 21). One of these emulated lines is mapped to the serial console, the other to a second serial port. Some models may have more serial lines. Please refer to Emulated Model Hardware Configuration Details for more information.

Configuration Parameters Overview

Each emulated line has a device path denoting bus and slot information in the emulated system (see configuration file template or chapter Emulated Model Hardware Configuration Details) and a configuration path. The configuration path is used to set up the serial line configuration in the emulator configuration file.

The following table shows the device and configuration paths used for the two serial lines:

Serial port configuration options are specified using the following syntax:

A serial port has three configuration options:

The configuration file templates contain the following default configurations:

Terminal Emulation Considerations

The emulated serial lines can be accessed via a terminal emulation program running on the emulator host system or on a remote system. 

Please note: if the terminal emulation program runs on a remote system, any firewall between the remote system and the emulator host system must permit the configured ports.

Stromasys supplies PuTTY profiles with the Charon-HPA kit. However, customers can select another terminal emulation program better suited to their purposes. This is especially true for emulated HP3000 systems where applications often use block mode terminals. This mode is not supported by PuTTY.

If not done so already during the installation, copy the provided PuTTY profiles to the correct directory on the host system. See Charon-HPA Software Installation.

Accessing Emulated HP3000 Systems via Terminal Emulation

HP3000 guest systems running on Charon-HPA can be accessed directly from the Linux emulator host using either of two freeware terminal emulators listed below, both of which run directly on the Linux host desktop, or by simply using the telnet command. Each has limitations, however. Neither terminal emulator provides a reliable way to paste multiple lines of text into :EDITOR , for example.
Once the HP3000 network is configured, it may be preferable to connect to the virtual HP3000 from a networked PC using any of the robust commercially-available terminal emulators.

Using PuTTY

The PuTTY terminal emulator is the preferred method to use as the HP3000 console. It does not, however, support HP terminal escape sequences, so any inverse or highlighted text codes will be ignored, and block mode applications cannot be run. Using PuTTY in telnet mode (as supplied) allows use of the Break key. PuTTY supports copy and paste. To copy text to the clipboard, just select it with the left mouse button (this automatically copies the selection to the clipboard). To paste the clipboard into a PuTTY window, use Shift-Ins . Unfortunately, PuTTY cannot be used to reliably paste large blocks of text (even with MPE type-ahead enabled), as data overruns can easily occur.

By default, the emulator configuration is set up to start PuTTY on the console port with the command:

serial.uart0.device.command="putty -load HPA-Telnet" (default port 30000). 

To start an terminal emulator manually, perform the following steps:

The image below shows a PuTTY terminal window connected to the emulated HP3000 system console:

Using xhpterm

The xhpterm terminal emulation (an X Windows version of freevt3k ) does not support many HP terminal escape sequences, but it can be used to run block-mode applications. It must be used on a serial line set up for raw mode.

The following image shows an xhpterm window connected to the second serial line of an emulated HP3000 system (running NMMGR):

Mapping the Block-Mode Enter key

The primary purpose for including this terminal emulator is to allow block-mode applications (like NMMGR ) to be run from the Linux desktop. xhpterm uses the numeric keypad Enter key to simulate block-mode Enter. If your keyboard does not have a numeric key pad, the Enter key can be mapped to another key or key combination using xmodmap on Linux. 

Example mapping the numeric key pad Enter key to Right-Ctrl:

Using Different Fonts

The default command-line to start xhpterm is:  $ xhpterm -port 30000 -clean -font 10x20

If the 10x20 font is not found, you can try -font 6x13 instead.

Additional fonts (e.g. the 9x15 font) can be installed using the command

 When using xhpterm , avoid resizing the window - it can result in input and output fields in block-mode programs being misaligned. Changing the screen font will change the window size automatically, without causing this problem.

Accessing Emulated HP9000 Systems via Terminal Emulation

Stromasys provides preconfigured PuTTY profiles to access the serial console of an HP-UX system running on Charon-HPA. PuTTY does not support all control characters used by HP-UX, but many utilities (e.g., SAM) will work with some restrictions.

By default, the emulator configuration is set up to start PuTTY on the console port with the command: 
   serial.uart0.device.command="putty -load HPA-Telnet-VT100".

To start an terminal emulator manually, perform the following steps:

 Instead of PuTTY, you can also use the standard telnet command on your remote Linux system (telnet <charon-hpa-host> <port>). However, Stromasys does not provide profiles for this.

Additional configuration steps to improve the behavior of the terminal emulation:

The following image shows a PuTTY window running SAM after the settings above were configured:

The following image shows a PuTTY window where the locale on the system running PuTTY is something different from C:

Other Terminal Emulation Considerations

Accessing the Emulated System Console from a Remote System

 Please note: intermediate firewalls must allow the ports used.

 There can be only one connection to an emulated serial line at one time.

The following two options provide two examples of how to connect to the console of an emulated system from a remote system.

Option 1: using PuTTY installed on the remote system

If PuTTY is installed on the remote system, you can use the session profiles provided by Charon-HPA (copy them from the emulator host) to connect to the emulated system:

• Start PuTTY.
• Load the correct session profile (see sections above).
• Change localhost to the name or IP-address of the emulator host.
• Start the session.

Option 2: use the telnet program on the remote system

Run the following program from the command-line:

$ telnet <emulator-host> <serial-line-port>

emulator-host is the name or IP-address of the Linux emulator host.

serial-line-port is the port of the emulated serial line using the telnet protocol (default 30000).

To exit the session, use the telnet escape key sequence CTRL+} and type quit.

Tunneling a Terminal Emulation through an SSH Tunnel

Even though a plain telnet connection can be used to connect to the emulated system's console, this plaintext connection may create security problems. As an alternative, you can tunnel a terminal emulation through an SSH tunnel provided X11 is active on the emulator host and the remote system.

 Any intermediate firewall must permit the port used for SSH (default 22).

Use the following steps to start a PuTTY session across an SSH tunnel: