How to connect to a serial port on Linux

First of all, let's assume that you have already connected the serial port of your Linux box to a switch console port via a serial cable.

To connect a Linux terminal to the serial port of your Linux system, you can use a command-line screen manager tool called screen.

Install screen on Linux

To install screen on Debian, Ubuntu or Linux Mint:

To install screen on CentOS, Fedora, or RHEL:

Connect to a Serial Port with screen utility

Traditionally in Linux, the first serial port (COM1) is assigned a name /dev/ttyS0, the second serial port (COM2) assigned /dev/ttyS1, etc. If you specify a serial port name as the first argument of the screen command, the current terminal window where you run screen will be directly connected to the serial port.

Thus, to connect to a serial port, simply run the following command from a terminal:

Optionally, you can specify baud rate (e.g., 1200, 9600, 19200) as the second parameter as follows.

Once connected to a serial port, you will then be able to access the switch console port from the terminal.

To terminate the current screen session, type "Ctrl-A"+"k". If you want to temporarily detach from the screen session, type "Ctrl-A"+"d". After detached, you can re-attached to the session later by running: