[rescue] needed RJ11 to serial

[Scott Quinn]

>this ebay item shows the cable (I think) in the 3rd picture, seems to be
>RJ11 to DB9 (lower left hand side)?
>http://cgi.ebay.com/Promise-VTrak-E310sS-SAS-wide-SAS-SATA-2U-chassis-/15054
3940142?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item230d1e3a2e
>That is pretty much the exact system I have, BTW.
>--Patrick


As others have noted, RJ-11 really is a specification for a connector, pin
configuration and specific signals, but my guess is that
"RJ-11" is here used to mean "6-position modular jack". Console serial ports
usually are 3-wire: TxD, RxD and SG, but the difficulty
with modular serial is that there really aren't any standards, so you'd have
to either get manufacturer documentation or someone to trace
out the actual adapter. On the plus side you can get "unwired" modular to
D-sub adapters that you can plug up any way you want (they're
not really unwired, but the pins are wired from the modular jack but not
inserted in the D-sub shell yet). While most of these that I have
seen have been 8-pos modular to DE-9 or DB-25, there's no reason you can't
wire up the 8-pos modular so your 6-position cord can go in
it and contact the proper pins.

I don't think too highly of Promise at this point, there is no reason to not
give a pinout somewhere obvious as cables are too easily
misplaced. Based on the pinouts given for the DE-9 equipped equipment it is
almost definitely the 3-wire setup, so tracing probably
wouldn't be too hard. Once you trace the SG you've got a 50% chance of getting
the pinout right. In the unlikely event that it's the
same pinout used by the StorEdge T3 you can find it here:
http://www.sunhelp.org/unix-serial-port-resources/serial-pinouts/#storedge.li
nk