The serialports database maps a name to a server name and TCP port number that represents the serial port connected to the specified terminal server host. The database is typically used to map host names to their consoles, but may also be used to provide access to printers, modems, and the like. The mapping is used when the service is being provided by a network based terminal concentrator such as a Xylogics Annex or MicroAnnex. For each name a single line should be present with the following information:

host-name	concentrator-hostname tcp-port-number

Items are separated by any number of blanks or TAB characters. A `#' indicates the beginning of a comment. Characters after the hash up to the end of the line are not interpreted by routines that search the file.

This information is used by cconsole(1M) to establish connection to a group of consoles of a cluster of network hosts. The names used in this database must be host names, as used in the hosts database.

For E10000 nodes, the entries are different. This is because E10000 uses netcon for console purposes, which operates over a network and executes on the SSP. The following is the generic format for the entry.

<hostname> <SSPname> 23

The database is available from either the NIS or NIS+ maps or a local file. Lookup order is specified by the serialports entry in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file, if present. If no search order is specified, the default order is nis files.

/etc/serialports

/etc/nsswitch.conf

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

cconsole(1M), chosts(1M), cports(1M), clusters(4), nsswitch.conf(4), attributes(5)