Tip (Unix utility)

Last updated

tip is a Unix utility for establishing a terminal connection to a remote system via a modem. [1] It is commonly associated with BSD Unix, as well as other UNIX operating systems such as Sun's Solaris. It was originally included with 4.2BSD. The name may refer to ARPANET's Terminal Interface Processor (TIP), a variant of the IMP, used to connect serial terminals directly with ARPANET.

Contents

tip is referred to in the Solaris documentation as the preferred terminal emulator to connect to a Sun workstation's serial port for maintenance purposes, for example, to configure the OpenPROM firmware.

Basics

tip is one of the commands referenced in the expect reference book by Don Libes.

The tip command line options are as follows:

tip [-v] [-speed-entry] (<hostname> | <phone-number> | <device>)  Use ~. to exit. Use ~# to break (Stop-A on a Sun keyboard). Use ~? to list all commands. 

Examples

This Expect script is a simple example that establishes a terminal session:

spawntipmodem expect"connected"send"ATD$argc\r"settimeout30expect"CONNECT"

As tip does not have the built-in logging capabilities that Minicom has, we need to use some other means to record the session. One way is to use script:

$ script -a install.log Script started, file is install.log$ tip hardwire [tip session takes place.]$ exitScript done, file is install.log$

and so on. In the above example, run on a Sun SPARC 20 workstation running Solaris 9, we first created a log file called install.log in the current directory using script' and then tell tip to use serial port B.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beowulf cluster</span> Type of computing cluster

A Beowulf cluster is a computer cluster of what are normally identical, commodity-grade computers networked into a small local area network with libraries and programs installed which allow processing to be shared among them. The result is a high-performance parallel computing cluster from inexpensive personal computer hardware.

man page Unix software documentation

A man page is a form of software documentation usually found on a Unix or Unix-like operating system. Topics covered include computer programs, formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts. A user may invoke a man page by issuing the man command.

ls Command to list files and directories in Unix and Unix-like operating systems

In computing, ls is a command to list computer files and directories in Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is specified by POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portage (software)</span> Gentoo package management system

Portage is a package management system originally created for and used by Gentoo Linux and also by ChromeOS, Calculate, Sabayon, and Funtoo Linux among others. Portage is based on the concept of ports collections. Gentoo is sometimes referred to as a meta-distribution due to the extreme flexibility of Portage, which makes it operating-system-independent. The Gentoo/Alt project is concerned with using Portage to manage other operating systems, such as BSDs, macOS and Solaris. The most notable of these implementations is the Gentoo/FreeBSD project.

The Berkeley r-commands are a suite of computer programs designed to enable users of one Unix system to log in or issue commands to another Unix computer via TCP/IP computer network. The r-commands were developed in 1982 by the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley, based on an early implementation of TCP/IP.

pax is an archiving utility available for various operating systems and defined since 1995. Rather than sort out the incompatible options that have crept up between tar and cpio, along with their implementations across various versions of Unix, the IEEE designed new archive utility pax that could support various archive formats with useful options from both archivers. The pax command is available on Unix and Unix-like operating systems and on IBM i, Microsoft Windows NT, and Windows 2000.

These tables provide a comparison of operating systems, of computer devices, as listing general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available PC or handheld operating systems. The article "Usage share of operating systems" provides a broader, and more general, comparison of operating systems that includes servers, mainframes and supercomputers.

Expect is an extension to the Tcl scripting language written by Don Libes. The program automates interactions with programs that expose a text terminal interface. Expect, originally written in 1990 for the Unix platform, has since become available for Microsoft Windows and other systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DTrace</span> Dynamic tracing framework for kernel and applications

DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework originally created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time. Originally developed for Solaris, it has since been released under the free Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) in OpenSolaris and its descendant illumos, and has been ported to several other Unix-like systems.

init UNIX system component

In Unix-based computer operating systems, init is the first process started during booting of the computer system. Init is a daemon process that continues running until the system is shut down. It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all other processes and automatically adopts all orphaned processes. Init is started by the kernel during the booting process; a kernel panic will occur if the kernel is unable to start it. Init is typically assigned process identifier 1.

A terminal server connects devices with a serial port to a local area network (LAN). Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication. The primary application scenario is to enable serial devices to access network server applications, or vice versa, where security of the data on the LAN is not generally an issue. There are also many terminal servers on the market that have highly advanced security functionality to ensure that only qualified personnel can access various servers and that any data that is transmitted across the LAN, or over the Internet, is encrypted. Usually, companies that need a terminal server with these advanced functions want to remotely control, monitor, diagnose and troubleshoot equipment over a telecommunications network.

tail is a program available on Unix, Unix-like systems, FreeDOS and MSX-DOS used to display the tail end of a text file or piped data.

getty, short for "get tty", is a Unix program running on a host computer that manages physical or virtual terminals (TTYs). When it detects a connection, it prompts for a username and runs the 'login' program to authenticate the user.

Oracle Secure Global Desktop (SGD) software provides secure access to both published applications and published desktops running on Microsoft Windows, Unix, mainframe and IBM i systems via a variety of clients ranging from fat PCs to thin clients such as Sun Rays.

An automounter is any program or software facility which automatically mounts filesystems in response to access operations by user programs. An automounter system utility, when notified of file and directory access attempts under selectively monitored subdirectory trees, dynamically and transparently makes local or remote devices accessible.

In Unix-like operating systems, a device file or special file is an interface to a device driver that appears in a file system as if it were an ordinary file. There are also special files in DOS, OS/2, and Windows. These special files allow an application program to interact with a device by using its device driver via standard input/output system calls. Using standard system calls simplifies many programming tasks, and leads to consistent user-space I/O mechanisms regardless of device features and functions.

The script command is a Unix utility that records a terminal session. It dates back to the 1979 3.0 BSD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix</span> Family of computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix

Unix is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.

In computing, tty is a command in Unix and Unix-like operating systems to print the file name of the terminal connected to standard input.

cu is a Unix utility for establishing a connection between two computer systems via a serial port to another computer system. When cu was originally created, connections to remote systems were most often done by phone, and cu was used in conjunction with UUCP utilities to transfer data via a modem. Now that intersystem communications are much more easily and reliably handled via Internet connections, its more typical use is to establish a terminal connection to another system via a modem or direct cabling.

References

  1. "tip - connect to remote system". Oracle Solaris 11.1 Information Library. Oracle Corporation. 2013. Retrieved 2019-05-09.