ESXi installing add on cards

[Private Citizen]

I have a Dell 2950 that has just been decommissioned after an Exchange07 upgrade and I am thinking of re purposing it as an ESXi box. I have ran into an issue because one of the servers I want to put onto the ESXi box requires the use of two 9 pin COM ports for data input. The 2950 only has one COM port so I added in a PCIe 2 port 9 pin COM card that we have laying around, however I don't see any evidence that ESXi supports this card.

Has anyone had any success using COM ports inside ESXi? How about USB since I may look into converters if warranted. The add on card we have is a cheapy from Shields.

Thanks

 

[lopoetve]

Doesn't work. No support for add-on com ports on ESX/ESXi that I know of.

edit: That I ~know~ of. If you find out, please let me know. I'm double checking too.

 

[geiger]

What are the com port devices? Have you looked at the Lantronix RS-232 over Ethernet offerings?

 

[Private Citizen]

What are the com port devices? Have you looked at the Lantronix RS-232 over Ethernet offerings?

Thanks for the quick reply lopoetve.

Geiger, one port will be fed ANI/ALI dump from call switch and the other port will have an Ethernet adapter connected to it that lets the server receive GPS coordinates of law enforcement cars to show up on dispatchers maps. The program that gets fed this info is programed to only look for this info coming from a COM port.

Anyone had any luck using USB ports inside of ESXi. Since no add on COM port cards are supported, are the integrated COM ports on the motherboard supported by ESXi?

Thanks

 

[geiger]

Thanks for the quick reply lopoetve.

Geiger, one port will be fed ANI/ALI dump from call switch and the other port will have an Ethernet adapter connected to it that lets the server receive GPS coordinates of law enforcement cars to show up on dispatchers maps. The program that gets fed this info is programed to only look for this info coming from a COM port.

Thanks

We have some older lantronix MSS/VIA boxes that do RS-232 through 802.11. The server has a driver framework that creates a virtual com port on the server that the application api thinks is a real com port. This is mainly for LED displays that are updated via serial and running 1000ft of cable is just insane.

ie it maps COMM5 to 192.168.8.2 and COMM6 to 192.168.8.3.

Something like http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/external-device-servers/uds2100.html with http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/utilities-tools/com-port-redirector.html on the server.

 

[lopoetve]

Also generally a negative on the USB connectivity - generally only drivers for mouse / keyboard are there.