Is there a Java client that supports Telnet RFC2217 (to communicate with COM ports over a network connection)?

Question

This should be simple, very simple, but I'm having a hard time with it.

Problem
I'm looking for an open source project, in java, that will communicate using the RFC2217 protocol. I find no shortage of Java RFC2217 Terminal Servers but I need a client. If all these people are writing servers, someone has to have written a client! Right? I just can't find one in java.

Context
We have a piece of hardware (SeaLINK+16 Ultra) that's physically connected to a dozen serial devices and accepts TCP network connections to control them. This device is networked with a server that has virtual COM ports that our application uses to communicate with those dozen devices.

Basically, our server ultimately sends network data to this SeaLINK device and this device converts the TCP traffic to COM data and transmits it via serial to its connected serial devices. The server and the SeaLINK device use the protocol specified in RFC2217 in order to communicate.

The commands that need to be sent to these serial devices are very simple (Cisco IOS). Short strings like "enable", "write memory", "reload", etc.

The issue is, the virtual COM ports enabled on our server require drivers that are a HUGE hassle to install in Linux and are not cross-platform. Plus, our entire application is written in Java so if we could just find a java networking package that can "speak RFC2217," we could solve our problems in no time and our application wouldn't need to be bundled with drivers.

Summary
All I need to do is "wrap" these commands into TCP packets that comply with RFC2217. There should be a java client out there somewhere that, you provide it a command string and it opens a socket and transmits your characters in a manner compiant with RFC2217.

Meaning, I wouldn't have to deal with installing drivers or using virtual COM ports locally. All I'd have to do is run code along the lines of:

RFC2217Client magicJavaClient;

magicJavaClient.setServer("192.168.40.5");
magicJavaClient.setPort(4162);
magicJavaClient.connect();

magicJavaClient.send("enable");
magicJavaClient.send("write memory");    
magicJavaClient.close();

Heck, I'd even settle for something that created virtual com ports locally--as long as it's all java. Something like this COM Redirector is exactly what I need but it's not in Java. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!

Update
NVTCom seems to be the type of java-based RFC2217 client I'm looking for but it's so poorly documented that it's almost unusable. Are there any other clients out there? We would even consider a commercial solution.

Answer 1

http://www.viara.eu/en/nvtcom.htm